The K Diaries
by tangoedup
Summary: What would selected entries taken from Kate's diary reveal about her personality, past struggles and about her personal process of falling in love with Caroline. This is an attempt at exploring a possible answer to this question. Enjoy :) Disclaimer : These characters belong to Sally Wainwright. I m only borrowing them for this story.
1. The K Diaries : Fall to Winter

SEPTEMBER 2011

...

There are only a few days that separate me from that life. The new life that I have chosen for myself. The one that I have been working on for the past three years. It's crazy how quick it went. Orientation week was brutal, everything and everyone being completely new and part of the

many elements my brain needs to absorb in very little time, but at the same time, this feeling of strange familiarity.

Come to think of it, it's not so different. It's true, Phyllis was right. Is right. I mean the spotlights aren't there, nor is Mark singing next to me, drenched in thick bloodlike sweat. My Wurlitzer is missing too , although the school has a remarkable organ that i might be able to lay my hands on. No keys ready to wail at my caress here just yet, though. Yeah that one hurts a little bit maybe. That thought. But I m happy Linda is playing it somewhere, my Wurlitzer, even now maybe. Taking it on her journey. Worrying about it being dropped on the floor by a careless roadie, instead of me.

But i've decided now. I have. Never would have thought it could be so easy.

Walking through the corridors during orientation, i could almost see the adolescent I was twenty years ago, looking at me in disbelief.

First day of class tomorrow. 9F, good thing Michael warned me. Have the worse stage fright! It is very much like a stage I guess. But a stage where i can't hide behind Mark anymore , or behind my instrument.

Im glad of what I found with Phillis during that intense cession a few weeks ago: teaching is like orchestrating a score within each student, creating a new world in them, a new tonality in which they can reinvent themselves, and explore who they are.

Just like in the band, I am an indispensable part of all the elements needed for the piece to be complete. Without me the show can't take place. It s just a different kind of show.

Im glad Caroline gave me a chance. It s also scary that she would. Pretty crazy in fact how fluid the whole thing has been. How she would take a chance on me, just like that. To think I almost didn't apply. I do have the credentials but so many people must have applied with comparable or more experience….I wonder what did it, apart from the musical background of course.

...

I did it, I survived. A full week. The smell of coffee is everywhere in the language center. I like that, the morning routine. The cadence of this life. I do feel like i am wearing a costume sometimes. The Miss McKenzy costume. I am performing in many ways, yet again. When I am in the corridors and a pupil calls me out, it still surprises me. Feel like i could just go to sleep every time i come home, though. And most of the times, I don't resist the urge. It's that intense. But very proud of myself. Maybe the tiredness comes from all the rewiring happening in my mind. I know that it isn't that again. I can feel it. Not depression again. Just facing myself, the choices that I have made for myself, that I am making. I hope i can do this.

That little girl in 9F, Denise, gave me this sharp unforgiving look yesterday. It was by far the worst class of the week. She could be an other version of me at her age. An uber confident version of myself at her age. Maybe that is why it hurt so.

But I have decided yesterday that it is true, i do love it all, the marine blue uniforms stiff with starch, students whose voices burst and bounce along the glossy hallways.

After all these years, when the bell rings my heart still jumps. Fear. Wonder where it comes from exactly. Was I that scared as a little girl? How much of that fear is still there ? Maybe it just reminds me that time hasn's sat still.

OCTOBER 2011

...

Writing from this beautiful retro coffeehouse not far from school, Henrietta's. I chose the table close to the window from which you can see the reddening leaves of the trees in the park from so close, you feel like you can almost stretch your hand out and touch them. I almost feel like an expatriate here, everything is so different from London. I can make my own life here, i feel protected somehow. From myself mainly. Sometimes the loneliness leaves me breathless though. I try to remind myself that the felt emptiness is necessary, for now. That I made room for beautiful things to come into my life. I try to relax in it….

…

Still a lot of unwanted dizzying S. thoughts though, but doing much better. Far, very far from days where living without her, without the possibility of us, seemed like an unbearable thought, that would stop me in my tracks, pulled me from any of the activity I was still able to have to leave me laying down in a featal position on my bed for hours on end. Seems almost unreal to think that in March, that was my reality. Maybe due to actually being so close to my new life being real. Being lived. I know better than to claim victory just yet. I know that the abyss is still very real. That going back there, to the world shrinking in on me, is possible. Phyllis was very clear.

Richard rung again. So strange to hear happiness in his voice, to realize we are there already, able to speak to each other like that again. After the whole tearing each other apart. At least he is. Always feel like this big warning sign is popping out each time i do indeed take the call. That before we know it, we could be there again. Poking at each other's wounds and calling it love.

Maybe that's really what we needed. For it to be written down somewhere. That we are free from each other. For us to be able to share this way again.

While talking to him I was thinking of the morning when I got them. The divorce papers in my brand-new mail box. The relief, but also this very peculiar sense of sadness. How they sat in my handbag for a week before I decided to finally file them.

His joy and apprehension when he told me that Emily was 24 weeks pregnant. I was expecting to hurt but very strangely, this healed something for me. Made me feel more hopeful. Genuinely happy for them. Like finally one of us has won that battle that we had been fighting for so long before we gave in, and found ourselves empty, with only scars to look at. No medals.

He asked about S. I told him how S left me. How she went back to the US.

The comfort of knowing that I don't have to explain. That he knows. Just by hearing me speak about her.

S. Is far. She will never be mine, I will never be hers. She will never want us, like that, together again and that is OK. She will never want my skin against hers, not like I want it. And that is OK.

Getting there I guess. Still quite painful I am afraid. (…)

November 2011

Writing from the desk of my new haven. My "room of one's own". My shelter. Boxes are still everywhere. Tons of choices to make. Mom's expression when she saw the new house, when she visited it with me. The relief in her smile, thinking that maybe I was indeed going to be okay. Haven't felt that free since York. Just bought a Zanele MUHOLI photograph for my house warming present to myself. Soon the tender embrace of these two women washing in a bucket will be the horizon of my study.

(…) Horrible nightmare this morning. S. rejecting me again, I was stuck in this monstrous fair, full of different rides, loud music, extremely crowded. Also kind of felt like a venue whose green room I was trying to find. S. was there, we were there together. It felt completely normal in my dream, although it never actually happened, us, like that, together. And suddenly I lost her, she was walking ahead of me. Not waiting for me, purposely trying to lose me in the crowd. I called her , shouted till it hurt in my dream. She never turned back.

I woke up to the nausea of her loss lodged deep in my throat. Again.

(...)

Loved loved loved that moment with Caroline yesterday! She got me a nice selection of gourmet teas for the house. Mumbled something about it being for me to be able to make acceptable tea for future guests. She won't let me forget how I commented that I loved the disgusting tea that we were served when we went to Henrietta's together to speak about the end of the year concert. Loved everything about it. How she downplayed the whole thing and almost threw the present in my lap while avoiding eye contact.

She popped in almost everyday on my first week, now that I think about it. Last Friday, she pulled me back from a bad place. Letting me know what an excellent job I was doing and urging me not to be too hard on myself. Telling me, reminding me, that classes that don't go well are part of the job specially in the beginning. She scares me a lot too. There's this anger about her that is likely to erupt at any given moment. She's quite glorious when it does but it's also scary. I get on really well with the other teachers, Michael especially, but I'm not part of any clique yet. I suspect that it will not happen. I'm a bit of an oddity really. A suspicious Rock Band past, divorced, no trace of any children, biracial and possibly gay….Michael is quite nice but he's certainly not discreet. I should definitely keep that in mind. The the london extraction doesn't make things any better I suppose. Caroline's an oddity too in some respects. She makes me laugh so hard at times.

Could be completely off but feel like she takes special care of me. Like the idea of that of course.

Probably completely off of course. Like her courage though, her strength. Wonder what her husband is like. I've heard they just split up. Something about him leaving for another woman.

Certainly a breath of fresh air compared to the boys club i had been stuck with in the band for more than a decade! I like working in an environment where strong women fits the description of 70 percent of the staff ! I also find the whole decorum of the posh British School quite endearing. Reassuring. If only Mark could see me! And the band!

…

DECEMBER 2011

Felt like i had misplaced something all day. Looked for my reading glasses before leaving for school. Made sure my keys were in my bag about ten times. Made sure i had all the material for each class. knew that I had packed my lunch. Wondered if maybe I owed someone some money or if it was forgetting an important birthday. Finally when I got home i realized: non one S. thought. Not in days. Not sure how I feel about it. It s not there pounding, anymore, the loss. I can think of her and not ache.I wonder what is left. I wonder how strong is the scar tissue. How resistant.

JANUARY 2012

So, not sure i should even write this down. Writing it makes it more real than I want it to be. That's why I've avoided the diary the whole month of December. Writing Makes me feel even more vulnerable. Means i can't keep pretending to myself like I have. Phillis would probably wonder if my pathologic need for intensity isn't at play. But yes, something is happening. Has happened. I don t know how it has, really. There was a shift for sure. At least for me. Just cannot pinpoint when it took place. Well, Something has been there, since the beginning really. Since laying eyes on her to be precise. Caroline. A sense of relief maybe. Deep rooted. An openness too. Eery familiarity. Or maybe i'm just a sucker for well clad snotty 40 something women.

I think I was just far too preoccupied with intruding Sarah thoughts to see it before. Blinded almost. But it was there then. Its been there since. Something was never neutral between us. For me.

It s a little bit the same as with Sarah, and this is what scares me potentially. Repeating that, the Sarah paradigm. But mid november, it shifted, slipped rather, into something else. It's all because of music again. Bumped into her at this Chamber music concert. She was there alone. She said something about how she'd gotten a membership with John and her mother hadn't wanted to come with. When I found her there, on my way, when she had already been on my mind, something lifted I think. It was very peculiar, physical almost. She invited me to join her for the mid december concert …and just like that I started counting.

« Did she look at me a bit longer today? Did she check me out just now? Am I making the whole thing up? If i leave exactly at 3.05 on friday i could actually bump into her since that's what happened two weeks ago. I haven't seen her in three days now, what on earth could I invent, to see her. I can go another day without seeing her, If nothings happened on thursday i'll just go to her office and mention the end of the year concert…. » It's a wonder really that even with that, even with the counting, I still was fooling myself.

I was quite happy pretending to myself that I was just caring about my new friend that happens to be my boss. I indulged happily in her self centered rents on her philandering husband, her worry about her children, mother, house, you name it; all the while vaguely aware that they were becoming necessary for me, those moments where I can be with her, close to her and take everything in. Her wit, her laughter, her scent, the way her voice alone can make me shiver. The questions that keep popping when she speaks to me, at me rather, most of the time, "I wonder how they taste, her lips, how soft exactly?" It s frightening really the level of denial I am capable of, even after all the coming out process.

Eventually, I found out the same way as I did with Sarah. Counterintuitively. Not with how I felt and thought everyday really. But it was the pain, as usual, that ended up sobering me up. Again. It was the pain that made the rest impossible to ignore any longer. Her smile that i could hear over the phone, that I could picture to myself thanks to all the time i studied how it modifies her voice, when she explained that she had a date, that she couldn't make friday night after amazingly, she'd been asked out by one of Gavin's friends that didn't seem like a complete mess, and that she was going to take _him_ to the concert. That she hoped I didn't mind. That she hadn't dated in decades and had no idea what to wear, that she was hoping we could see each other on thursday after school instead. The nausea all of a sudden. The anger creeping in slowly. I had enough self respect to say, pretend rather, that thursday was impossible for me. That I was already taken. The disappointment in her voice. The silent " i thought you'd be happy for me" she didn't utter.

This is where it stops though, the Sarah parallel. I'll keep my distance from now on. I _will_ protect myself this time. No indulging anymore. She'll barely notice I'm sure. I Want moré, deserve moré than that.

But i do, pathetically I might add, wonder what's she'll wear. Maybe that exquisite see through shirt and the beige skirt...

...


	2. The K Diaries : Winter Continued

JANUARY 2012 (continued)

It's happened. I know it's happened. I'm sure it's happened. But I feel the need to retrace the sequence.

Something is missing for me to fully comprehend, fully grasp how we got there. How we allowed ourselves to get there. To open the door.

At Henrietta's again, writing, these words with a brand new Lamy fountain pen. I love how it slides on my Moleskine notebook page. Complete with my cappuccino this is utter luxury. Although this has become my late Saturday morning ritual, today is different, it feels like a celebration really, I m just the only guest.

When Sadie brought my cappuccino to the table just now, I realized I had been writing with my index pressed right there where Caroline's lips were yesterday. My lips feel bruised somehow, bitten by the warm want I tasted there. Burnt by the soft caress of her thumb where our lips had joined, and where her eyes rested, right after it ended. Before the school bell rung. Before it brought us both back to the surface. Back from the deep deafening wave we had sunk into. Where I could only hear the noise or my heart pounding, and then the soft brushing of our lips, and then, as our kiss deepened, after the initial shock of the unbearable softness there, then the faint cry of our mingling saliva as our mouths opened and pulsed rhythmically against each other, softly.

How the bell brought all the sounds rushing, back to my ears, the voices of the students and their loud footsteps in the corridors. And how my body fell right back into motion. But how my mind has staid there, since then. How it willingly lingers. Marvels at the dizziness each time it goes, tries to go over it. The fall, the dip my senses take each time.

Reading the entry I wrote before this one again, right after the phone call I'm reminded of how hopelessly tentative the whole process felt before, how painfully clumsy. And now, one kiss later, a mere contraction of compact seconds later, it seems as if everything has lead to this, gently, smoothly.

I did dare. I did. Ironically, her date with Gavin's pal, whatever his name is, ended up pushing it out of me, when the cowardice just had put a nice lid on everything. Helped me put a stop to the farce. Helped me change the record. Accept that the thirst had been there. At least for me, and I am almost sure, for her. Avoiding her every chance I got, her and the heavy longing of our stares, wasn't hiding anymore. It was the pull of the water before the wave comes crashing on freshly soaked sand. The pull before the release, knowing it was coming. It had to come. Knowing that I would make us both look at it no matter how oblivious of it we had both been, and still wanted to be. But knowing I couldn't afford it anymore. Knowing that it was time to acknowledge it, the growing thirst for each other. In between the hesitation, and the hiding, not visible at all times but there nonetheless. Welling up, in the quiet uneasiness of our silences. In the stolen looks on each other's bodies, cleavage, legs, lips, eyes, backs. Above all, paradoxically, in our shared avoidance of each other's touch. The thrilling heaviness of it.

I let all of this wash away, kept myself far from it, suddenly angry at her, and at myself, I let the bitterness simmer.

And sure enough she came to me. Yesterday, right before my last class towards the end of my free period. Ready to pretend. Or rather, ready to pick the song up where we had left it. As we had left it.

She had this questioning look in her eyes I had rarely if ever, seen before.

She was tucked in that black skirt that falls lower under her knee than the other ones, and I remember that she pulled on her belt nervously as she walked in.

And that s when I did, as gently as possible, to my own surprise, change our tune.

When I answered that I was happy her date was horrible, after she told me it was, she laughed right away. She seemed unaware of the change of mode in my voice yet. She laughed her high-pitched almost girly laugh. Seemed relieved then, like she was happy that we could still do that together, go there, that we still had that, that it hadn' t been lost in that gap that had formed between us since the phone call.

When the laughter died out, I felt her try to ignite it again, she said it'll serve her well, that she did dump her only friend for a stupid blind date after all.

I waited. I could taste the bitterness in my mouth. I looked at her, not flinching, not apologizing, not hesitating. I said « Is that what happened? Is that the lesson? » She looked at me, visibly startled. I remember that she said « Yes, well I _am_ sorry about that Kate it was …silly» like only she can say these things, with just as much utter contempt as sincere regret.

I remember my voice, still in this new mode, maybe Dorian if I had to pick, when I added «I don't think so, Caroline, I don't think that's what happened at all ».

She looked at me, now in full Dr. Elliot mode, invisible soldiers inside her mind already leveling the walls of the fortress, I knew that time was of the essence then, that soon enough, all entrance would be shut. That's when I did tell her " I don't think it was silly. I think you were happy to cancel on your "only friend" for a more acceptable date.» The words shot through my mouth, fast, even, measured, the mode, becoming more and more familiar now although still unheard between us before. Her face completely froze, she asked « What do you mean?» I saw fear in her eyes, all of a sudden. I said « Never mind Caroline! » And I just started leaving the room. Turning my back on her. I took a few steps and then realized that I was going to do this. Claim this, for myself, for us. Even if I could still hear all the reasons why I shouldn't, at that moment it was just a distant clamour. Even if it meant risking it all between us, jumping off that cliff.

I turned back.

It felt like I was driven, somehow, by this instinct, rather than in full control. I remember avoiding her questioning stare and just aiming for her lips, but I have no idea how I ended up cupping my hands around her face, when, exactly. But I did. They were still there when the school bell rang although I know I let them go as soon as I felt her kiss me back, respond. As soon as I felt her join me in the wave.

When the bell did ring, and my heart skipped, and she swiftly removed her thumb from my lips; seconds before the first students stormed into the room, I remember that, although I kept trying, I couldn't wipe away the smile from my face. She left; the shock of her heals even harsher on the floor than usual. She had her back to me and I don t know if it was there too. If like me she just couldn't wipe her smile away. But it heard it, flickering in her voice when she called, five minutes after my last class. She asked directly, no hesitation, in this new, now shared, mode of ours. " Kate, are you doing anything tomorrow night? "


	3. The K diaries : 3 days in febuary

Big thank you to all the tangofic fans who left reviews and messages, those who just love Sally's characters, which is already reassuring about the state of this world, and those who write so beautifully. Please keep it coming in any shape or form, i love reviews, i love discussing with other tangofic fans. For those interested, would love to hear about what is different for you about this show, the way you ve experienced it?

Let me know if you feel like it :)

* * *

><p>FEBUARY 2013<p>

* * *

><p>Day 1 : "Spring Can Really Hang you up The Most"<p>

* * *

><p>I cant believe it's happened again. Falling, Falling completely again, all my heart plus some, for someone who obviously doesn't even think we are a thing. I mean what is it? What do I find so irresistibly attractive in that situation? Granted it's a bit different this time, she's not still in love with her estranged wife like Sarah was, no, it's actually worse than that, much more humiliating: she just «can't go there»! Simply cannot. Won't. Any excuse will do. Can't see us together as something valuable enough that she would actually want to pursue it, put an ounce of effort into it. I mean she called us « the other thing »for god's sake! That's what we are to her essentially. Something that shouldn't even be named.<p>

Very smart Kate! Thought I had read between the lines. Thought I had uncovered a rare brand of unspoken yet incredibly deep love. Fooling myself yet again like a bloody teenager, more like it. The lines were never there! Idiot! She doesn't even care enough to stick to words she uttered last bloody week! I'm just some toy she tossed aside when she got tired of playing bi-curious Caroline, lest the neighbors should hear. Decorum of the posh British school not so endearing after all.

She doesn't even care enough to actually consider turning down her cheating lying pathetic excuse of a husband, who actually had the nerve to come back to her, after what he's done. Not because he loves her, not because he misses her, but because his mistress is an alcoholic! I mean what kind of a come back line is that? He didn't even _try_ to make is sound like something remotely romantic or heartfelt, from what she said. But I guess, it was good enough for her. Better than us. Sufficient. More appealing. I mean Sarah at least, had a decent reason to leave. She left me because she was in love with someone else, her wife as it turns out. But Caroline? I mean I don't even get it. She stopped everything between us before we could we could even start anything, without even giving us a proper chance, and for what? I mean she can't even stand him anymore, let alone love him. I wouldn't' t be surprised if they made the tabloids one day. «Gruesome murder, Yorkshire headmistress kills husband after he mucks up spotless kitchen!»

Like coming out wasn't hard enough. Like breaking Richard's heart wasn't enough. Like having to stand there and listen to him stab himself with the images he could conjure up of our love making, of Sarah and I. Like watching the slow realization settling in and the cold anger turn into deep sadness wasn't enough. Like telling him: "No , I don't want you anymore, Sarah's maybe is better than your forever, Richard. Yes, her skin on mine, more than our five years of marriage. Yes her mouth everywhere, her pussy on my tongue, is worth all of that. It's true, this is what I want, this is why I m leaving.» telling him all of that every other way than verbally, like that wasn't enough. Like Sarah changing her mind on me wasn't enough, like her deserting me was just the hors d'oeuvre. I had to get myself more of that, please. I had to feel what it is to be rejected because of what the neighbors might think. I feel like I'm stuck in a parody of a Victorian novel. It's ironic that I got her the Ann Lister diaries.

Another small less than charming detail I may have been well inspired to look into before is this one: she never, ever asks anything about me. I mean past what she knows through being my boss, she never asks and obviously doesn't need any kind of information about me. The woman probably knows more about her banker than she does about me. Doesn't that tell you something Kate?

Without even going there, to her conspicuous less than impressive interest for who I happened to be, apart from the occasional snog at recess that she seems to enjoy, I could have maybe stopped myself at another pretty convincing bloody detail. I mean, she is, after all, my boss. My superior. Some people just stop there, right there. Accept that it simply is a bad idea. No matter how charming their superior is, they just step aside, move on, keep walking. Or just keep it as a cute little crush, knowing anything more would be a waste of their valuable time and energy, send them the odd New Year's Eve card, or a even a birthday present.

But no, that's not me. Who wants requited love, that's so cliché. Not for me thank you very much. No, I'll just ignore the hundreds of probably adorable, available, ready to commit, emotionally apt OUT LESBIANS in Yorkshire to focus on no other than …..My uninterested boss. My heterosexual boss at that, not yet divorced, and getting further and further away from being divorced, who may have had one or two girl crushes decades ago. That seems like a much better plan.

Tired, oh so tired of it all. And it s only ten to ten in the bloody morning, got dumped, taught 9F! Pretty shitty day so far.

What would really help is if «Try a little tenderness» could stop playing like a broken record in my head. It felt so good this morning, when I was singing to it in the car driving up to school, but now it sounds like a bad joke that won't stop. Dad loved this tune so much. I wish I could at least stop crying like a heartbroken seventeen year old. Still have the whole day to go, and now have to apply make up again. If it could only stop. Interesting gymnastics to write with one hand and wipe the tears with the other. Getting quite good at it I am afraid. I'm going to have to leave this empty classroom in twenty minutes and go to the staff room for that meeting. I has to stop by then. I pray that it does.

You have to grant it to John, though, his timing is perfect! Bloody Valentine's Day! I don't think she even realized. I really wish I hadn't googled him. I wouldn't have to know what an arrogant prick he seems to be right now, how shallow. I feel like such an idiot. I guess I can just keep it, the book. I'll just give the scarf to mom. I mean what's wrong with a stupid chocolate box, Kate. No, I had to go all out. Spend two free afternoons looking for the perfect presents. I know it'll pass, I know that I'll get over it but I am worried. I'm worried at the part of me that still feels like ringing her, telling her to please reconsider, that surely she didn't mean that.

Pathetic.

Make up cession number two.

* * *

><p>DAY 2 : "Blue in Green"<p>

* * *

><p>On days like this, running the pen on paper, letting the ink flow, feels like my anchor, my boat. Keeps me from drowning. Now that I have let the anger out, now that the sadness is slowly taking place, now that the hurt has lessened, I must admit that part of me knew it was coming. Knew she wasn't ready, that it was too much, too quick, even for me in a way. The intensity of it. The signs were there. Far from subtle ones too. The older and wiser lesbians chorusing in my head had been warning me countless times «hum, going from the heartbroken married hard butch still in love with her wife to the 46-year-old bicurious high femme het with baby lesbian potential? Internalized homophobia much? ...Kate, are you sure you want to do this? I mean she can't even say the word gay or lesbian without looking around to make sure no one's overheard! »<p>

Good thing I had my make up with me, cause it wasn't the last cession yesterday. Cried again in the staff room and improved my day dramatically by telling Michael when tearful and hurt, about us. I wish I hadn't. Really.

Her look when I told her this morning. When I told her the details of it. Well when she got them out of my pathetic stuttering self more like it. Avoiding me, avoiding to look straight at me. I almost fell over trying to follow her down the stairs. She does the angry and stern self-righteous headmistress so well. Her « You're gonna have to say it » still rings in my ears. But it was there, in her expression when she broke up with me yesterday and when she confronted me about Michael today. A strange mix of arrogance and shame, avoiding my stare, dismissing me. Yesterday, looking at her, in shock after she said it "I'm not ready …..to go there" I could feel her relief at the prospect of being safe again, of regaining the reassuring misery of her married life, comfortable and socially rewarding enough for her. And it made me so angry, so angry at her. Clenched jaw angry. Almost scared myself when I looked into the mirror to reapply. Of course that's when I do cry the most, when I am angry.

As angry as I was, I'm the one who asked if she was cross about Michael and how I divulged, today in the corridor. How she didn't look at me, then and just said "No" and how instead of making me even angrier, at her, at the whole situation, her look, or the lack thereof, how she stared at my chest instead of my eyes, as if looking for something she'd lost, before she whispered, "no" and left, made me stumble and fall all over again, for her.

Somhow, knowing she's choosing this over us out of fear, out of a need for security doesn't make things any easier to accept.

She still doesn't want this.

It s still « not her » although it s also « not not her ». I guess it would be laughable if it wasn't so painful.

* * *

><p>DAY 3 : "Try a little tenderness"<p>

* * *

><p>My decision is taken. I'm going to let it be. I've decided really, I've decided it's ok to be daft. I m going to let myself be wrong a bit more. Indulge. Not because I'm hopeless. Not because I don't want to hear what she had to tell me when she broke up with me two days ago. Or because I don't respect her boundaries, or her and who she is and what she wants right now. I don't really know why, but I know I will, let myself. Try a little tenderness.<p>

I really wonder what it is. What makes me so hopeful still? What makes me think she's going to call again? What makes me believe that when she does I will answer and we'll just pick up from wherever we left off? Despite the fact that she couldn't have been clearer. That from now on we could be friends, "obviously", but nothing more. Is it pure blindness? An all-too-familiar form of madness already? Why is it that I cannot let go? Why is it that if it doesn't happen, I think I'd rather look for a job somewhere else than to have to look at that, the reminder of the lack of her in my life, everyday. When if fact, in all honesty, I actually barely know her.

I mean I could count the moments that we've spent together on my two hands. If you put them together back-to-back, I probably wouldn't have enough to fill a whole day. I know that. Even though if I added the daydreaming, the wishful thinking, the fantasizing, we'd probably be talking entire weeks.

If I think of the real reason, I know that it's not rational. It s not anything I could explain to someone other than myself. And even that is difficult. I think it has to do with this feeling that something resonates when we are together. She doesn't ask questions, direct ones. It's true. But there is such precision, in her presence; in the way she speaks to me sometimes. How she asked a few weeks back « Is this your idea of a winter coat Kate? I mean it's really pretty but you'll catch death! This is Yorkshire you know!» Before I knew it she just grabbed her beige cashmere scarf that was hanging in her office, one of her favorite ones that I always see her with, and just slowly wrapped it around my neck. How she let go a little bit too slow for it to be conveniently disguised under the motherly persona she likes to use with me as a pretext, and smiled almost sadly. Her perfume on it. How I pretended I had forgotten it for days to keep it a bit longer and when I did return it, how she said that I should keep it. I could just tell she wanted me to have it, to know that I wear it. The silent approval in her eyes each time she sees me with it. Yes, somehow, this precision in her presence, the way she conveys that, to me, feels more tangible than a five pages long love declaration. The effect she has on me really.

How the time zone felt like it changed when she came over. I knew when I saw her walk to my door that it was a fight, that it wasn't easy. Something about the hesitation in her stride up to my porch, the weakness of her smile. I pictured her picking up her phone to cancel several times before finally giving in and driving herself to my place, probably out of a concern for etiquette just as much as out of her desire to see me. I knew that half of her really wanted to keep things as they were before our kiss, the minute our eyes met, and she was standing there in my kitchen, vulnerable, nervous, slightly reproachful.

But she did come. I can't forget that. Erase it. Pretend, as she is trying to do now, that it didn't happen. There was no steamy love making. No deep heartfelt declaration of everlasting love. Just a wine and cheese pique nique on my sofa, listening to arias by La Callas and swapping stories of old love and deep loss. Of missed occasions and failed attempts to forgive ourselves, others. After a few glasses, she told me about Indira, her girlfriend from Oxford. I could tell when she was reminiscing, sipping on imaginary wine out of her empty glass, that she was so surprised that this teenager she had been was still here, that this girl she barely acknowledged consciously for all these years was still there, after all. I felt her flinch at the realization that her pain was there too, not any kind of pain, the dull ache of self inflicted betrayal kind. I can't forget how she told me she thought she would be safe that way. At the time. That if she stopped things there, were they were with Indira, after her disastrous attempt at a coming out to Celia, then she would be safe. That she could chose something less daunting, something easier.

How she said that in a way it was. John, the children, their life together. But that they were always there, in the sour moments in particular. The questions. "What if she had lead this other life? Would the emptiness, the gaping hole in her spirit, be less acute? Where was Indira now?" She wasn't avoiding my eyes anymore when she told me that our kiss brought all of this back to her. That she was terrified but couldn't stop thinking about it since it happened. I felt her relief almost physically, when I reassured her, my hand caressing her cheek, when I said that we could take it slow and be as discreet as she needed. That I respected her, her boundaries. I had meant to change the record before she got there. I hadn't meant to make everything so bloody tragic, I mean Maria Callas' "les airs de la folie!" Nice work Kate! Nice and light! Bloody 9F class prep was the only reason I was even listning to it before she got there. Something about the highs and lows of her arias makes me calm down. Funny how 9F is quickly becoming a metaphor of how everything can go horribly wrong in our relationship when we least expect it. I was going to change the record but something stopped me. Something about how precarious our balance was, like two tightrope walkers really. A vague feeling that any drastic change to the flow of the evening could very well result in her suddenly getting up and inflicting one of her imperious " I've got to go!" liners, accompanied by a nice specimen in her impressive range of excuses. So it was playing the whole time, when I had planned on putting some bossa nova, some Caetano Veloso even. When I took her glass from her hand the first movement of the strings had just started the aria leading to La Callas' first gut renching "Ebben, Ne Andro lontana…" fom La Wally, when our lips met. This time, here was something almost choreographed about our kiss, the surrender of it embracing each movement of Maria's voice and the orchestra dancing around it, the incredible dizzying heights, the aching lows. Her lips were soft and warm and tasted of Chinon.

So I think this is why I'll do it, because of what I heard and saw that night. What I perceived of what being together could be that night. Because I trust that. Because I feel like she needs me to. We need me to. Because I know that it is scary, I have been scared myself not so long ago, I remember although it is an effort. It's so easy to forget once you've overcome it. When I think about it, I didn't have a high-profile job or two teenage boys and a judgmental live-in mother. And I was still terrified. To say "this is me". To let my mother down in a new devastating way. Not only am I not the new Clara Haskil and tossed my grade 8 classical musicianship to go play in a rock band, not only am I unable to give you precious grandchildren, but I am also not even able to keep a husband who loves me and stick to a sexuality that is acceptable.

The tears she couldn't stop shedding for weeks, like part of me, her perfect Kate, died that day. It's a strange thing to see yourself die in your mothers eyes.

I don't want that, this fear, if that is indeed what stands between us, to get the last word So I'll do it , I'll cling to it a bit more.

I'll try a little tenderness.

Because I need it. Because I won't let her erase it. What we had, what we still have.

Like the shadow erasing it all, ruthlessly, methodically, all the memories, from dad's beautiful mind. All the things that are him, that are me, even the ones I don't know about, the ones he was probably keeping for later. I know they're being erased too, and there is nothing I can do about it.

Probably because I cannot stand to lose one more of those anymore if I can help it.

One more of these moments.

Because I refuse, I won't participate in the amnesia she's proposing.

Because for one evening and two kisses, an eternity in fact when I compare it to what I ever felt for Richard over the course of our marriage, everything made sense.


	4. Coming into Spring: The hours

Hi Tangofic lovelies, thank you so much for the heart warming reviews, careful passionate reading and amazing fiction you keep writing.

Here is my version of Kate and Caroline's steamy afternoon in Season 1 , K diary style but a tad bit more graphic than previous chapters, Really hope you enjoy it :)

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><p>28th Febuary 2012, Harrogate,<p>

Dearest Sarah,

I feel like writing you these words, here, in my diary. Probably because I know beforehand that it will be another one of those unsent letters. The ones I kept on my desk for so long and are now sitting in a drawer somewhere. The ones where I kept trying to find what happened to us. Looking for answers. Until the silence itself, became an answer, and everything finally sunk in. I know I won't send it. Not because i don't have the courage to do so. But because it's too late now. I know that.

My love for you, my passion, seems so far away now. Like a distant dream. I think of how I had hoped for that day, for some kind of godsent amnesia, some cure, that would free me from it.

And now it's here. Something about last night washed it away for good. I feel vaguely guilty. Not towards you, not really, I know you would be thrilled for me. But towards the everlasting love I had sworn. I m glad that the spell is off, but also dumbfounded.

I think I am writing to tell you about her. About making love to her, last night. How she caught me off guard. How she almost kidnapped me. There was something hypnotic about her yesterday. About the emotional state she was in.

I want to tell you how it was. How different it was. It wasn't like you and I at all. Although I loved, and still love everything about you and I, about us. But how this time, it felt like each kiss, each touch, each sigh was a new word written on a crisp new white sheet of paper. Out of a completely new manuscript that we were writing together.

Sure, there are mistakes things we write and then cross out. Things we don't know how to formulate, a lot of hit and miss in the language we are trying to create.

But It didn't feel like random words you would draw on the napkin at a restaurant waiting for your dinner date to arrive and then forget to take with you as you leave.

Or even choose to actually leave there, because you know that although they were fun to write, they're not important, essential. They'll only clutter your space.

I did not feel her mind drift to other places than her own uncertainty, her own vulnerability when we made love.

She was not looking for the feel of somebody else's skin on mine, as you had been from the moment we met.

My skin was enough for her.

There was no prowess taught by years and years of pleasing women's bodies, quenching their thrust, like there was with you. But no going through the motions either.

Every kiss every sigh, every touch was conquered, and for us only. I know that she gave me everything she could. I know that when her climax came and washed her senses, and the wave pulled back afterwards, there wasn't this rock still standing in the middle untouched, the water already clearing gently from its surface, like there was with you.

No rock to fight against.

As soon as she hung up and the laughter died on her lips, sooner than on mine, I recognized the burning hunger rising in her eyes. The same one that was burning there in her office earlier that day.

How painfully aroused I was for the rest of the day. How any real focus was almost impossible to achieve. Visions of her hand fingering my nipples irrupting at random, making me dizzy, and her "I want to make love to you right now", whispered just before Beverly came back with the tea, still burning my ear.

She grabbed me and pushed me against the entrance door, kissing me voraciously, imploring with every whimper for I don't know what. For things to go faster. For us to already be in bed, naked, at each other's disposal. As if she was almost afraid that the window would close again, that the epiphany that she had had that morning would leave, just as it had appeared, and it would take months and months for her to find this entrance to herself again.

I don't know how the erratic choreography of our bodies took us from the entrance door to lying naked on my bed. I remember blinding breathless kisses, our battling hands pulling desperately on fabric, to finally be able to take full open handed grasps on each other's offered flesh, hands flying on each other's neck, legs, faces, lips ...

She came so fast, as I was just teasing her, rubbing my thigh against her moist center, getting ready to feel her, taste her, that it surprised both of us. I left a trail of soft kisses all over her face, telling her that it was okay, that we had all the time in the world, but it wasn't enough to soothe her embarrassment she kept repeating "I'm sorry" and her tears came back, they were never really far. I thought of her that very afternoon tearful , sitting on the floor of her office right after our kiss, as my hand brushed against her cheek, and the emotional roller coaster the last 24 hours had been for her.

We were both lying naked, but our postures were quite the same as they had been in her office. Her looking away at the ceiling, her hands on her forehead. Wiping away the tears as her breath was becoming more laboured, and was finally letting the tears, that had been welling up over the past days, flow out of her. Fully. Me lying on my side next to her, propping my head up, to better look at her, with my left hand, and my right hand, the one I had been craving to feel her wetness with, sitting on her stomach, jerking with each one of her tearful gasps.

The salted tears I drank up on her cheek as I gave her soft kisses there, soothed my desire and for quite some time, we lay there, listening for her approaching relief. When it came, and my hand on her stomach had been rising and falling evenly like the flow of the Mediterranean Sea for a few minutes, I asked her, my lips brushing softly against her ear "Do you want to feel me inside….. now?" She nodded yes with a tentative smile her eyes leaving the ceiling for a few seconds. And so I did, slide one finger first slowly, tenderly, inside her, her slick pussy making me shiver with pleasure, the thump between my thighs almost unbearable.

Her hands were still there, resting on her eyes, not wiping away tears anymore but sheltering her from the magnitude of the wave that was coming maybe. Or perhaps, from the aching realization as it was happening, that even though she'd never experienced it before, she had been missed this sensation, another woman's fingers inside her, for all these years. Realizing she'd been craving for something she'd never known before, until now. Just like when she ripped off my bra and for a few seconds our dance was interrupted a few meters away from the bed, as she stood, looking at my chest, transfixed, her mouth obviously watering, as she had to swallow hard several times, before the urgency suddenly sent her back into motions and her tongue found my nipples. I could almost hear her mind race to all the times she'd imagined that moment before.

I thought of myself then. Of myself under your fingers, your knowing fingers. Of my first time with a woman.

It worked. The sheltering herself from her own resistance, clenched fists pressed on her closed eyelids, taking careful, silent, raspy breaths, keeping the gyration of her hips to a bare minimum, for as long as she could. She was so open to me, so dripping wet, so malleable, I could have easily slid my whole hand inside of her. But I decided to just keep to three fingers so I could still toy with her clit.

The trust it probably took to let me in like that.

When she started unraveling and she grabbed me by the neck punctuating every gasp with escalating cries of "oh my God" and "oh Kate! », her voice still so close to tears, I felt my heart swell to a painful size in my rib cage, until her release came in a violent riptide, flushing her entire body, arching her back, clenching her walls around my fingers in furious tugs, pushing a puddle of liquid warmth onto the bed sheet.

When I looked at her next, my fingers still inside of her, my hand drenched in her wetness, she had a look of horror on her face and kept apologizing . Saying she didn't know what happened. I slid my fingers out delicately, tenderly, and started showering her with all the words I could find of reassurance, of love, telling her how beautiful she was, how flattering this actually was. Her coming like that for me, with me.

I told her it was my first time too, touching a woman like that. I didn't mention you, just the fact that you didn't let me touch you. I didn' t want to say your name. I wanted everything to be just for us. Didn't want to invite anyone else in. The time will come when i will have to of course, tell her about you. In more details.

When her face relaxed and she even smiled a bit, realizing, I said "Darling, you really can't keep apologizing each time I make you come. » And then we just lay there, our bodies intertwined, my hands caressing the damp hair on her forehead and at her temple, soothing her yet again. She was so exhausted that she fell asleep and didn't even wake up when I got away to fix us something to eat.

I smiled at the puddles of clothes and lingerie I found scattered on my way down to the kitchen.

As I was preparing the fajitas, cutting each bell pepper, through their length, getting rid of unwanted flesh inside, I started thinking of the last time I had made this dish and realized I had made the same dish for us after making love more than once. Savoring each color between my fingers, red, green, yellow, I wondered how it came about, did the association start by devouring Zami, and Audre's lengthy descriptions of her lovemaking with Eudora in Mexico. Pealing an orange while the chicken was cooking, I thought of the mirroring sequence, between Audre's abject pain, at losing Bea; her hand that she kept on the burning stove so she could feel something else than the gaping whole in her heart, and her unexpected relief her rebirth in Afrekeke's arms. The comfort she found in their mingling brown hued skin. I thought of the parallel there.

How skin comes brushing against skin, and how porous love renders us.

I thought of the remains of the aching for your onyx hued skin on mine and how they were all dissolved that afternoon. How they were washed away in the uninterrupted fall of my smooth dark amber skin against hers. Her brown flecked creamy velvet under my fingertips.

Writing these words, I'm thrilled at the realization that I can finally perceive the blessing you have been in my life. Instead of the curse I was willing myself to forget. Last night finally lets me see that with distinct clarity. I m so grateful now, thinking of how, before I left that evening, after our first time, stunned, and already so taken by you, you put a copy of « Zami, a New Spelling of My Name » in my hands and simply said "Read it." I remember the defiance in my voice as I retorted "Why should I? " "Because it could change your life.» You answered. And of course you were so right about that. It did. I remember your obvious weariness at my coming out angst, that seemed so beneath your hard butch persona, with years of "leaving the life".

Everything in your physical attitude screamed seducing me had been fun, a welcomed distraction, but the rest was so tedious ... . How, even then, furious as I was by how dismissive you were, I was trying to edge the panic taking over as I sensed there was a very real possibility that I would never see you again. Already desperately taking in every detail I could before having to go; the broad muscular shoulders rippling under your tight T shirt and your almost boyish chest, the fine burnt brown dreadlocks tied on the nape of your neck one or two escaping the grip dangling around the fine bronze skin of your strong hands, already holding your true companion, the Nikon camera, your mind already drifting to the shooting your were thinking of as you held the entrance door of your flat open, for me to find my way out.

When I woke her up, knowing that she would have to get back soon, with soft kisses in her necks she was obviously disoriented and struggled to reconstruct the events, slowly emerging from the depth of a sleep deprived haze. It took her a while to realize where she was and what had happened. The large smile that bloomed on her face when she did was priceless. She cupped my face in her hands and kept repeating "You're here!" in disbelief.

I tried to tell her about the fajitas waiting for us downstairs as I fed her a bite of the orange I was eating when she grabbed me firmly by the collar of my shirt, pulling me in, drawing her lips, already opening for a kiss, millimeters from mine, and instead of kissing me, lingering there, our thirst welling up, breathing on each other, our lips almost touching, until I couldn't take it anymore and dove back into bed with her, our tongues dancing against each other in a passionate orange tasting kiss. She freed me from the shirt I had been wearing too cook and, taking control, straddled me, reverently caressing my breasts, with her hands, and hair, as she leaned down, and then started sucking on my nipples, telling me in between her kisses how sexy I was, how beautiful, how she had tried to imagine, but that she had been so far from it.

As she now lay on my side, cradling me with one arm, even with the night falling and the bedroom now being bathed in dark shades of grey, I saw her pupils darken to two pools of deep ocean blue as she reached down, cupping me first, her fingers playing with my pubic hair, taking in the sensation, then slowly, dipping in, caressing my swollen folds, her fingers tentative at first, her eyes looking for answers on my face, but then gaining assurance with every stroke as she found my clit, gasping for air just as much as I was.

I couldn't believe it when all of a sudden, her fingers were gone and seconds later I felt her mouth on me, devouring. Licking and sucking, tasting me for the first time, I was lost in the maddening pressure of her tongue that kept me on the edge of climaxing for what seemed like hours, when I heard a long loud cry, and realized it was coming from me when it died , my throat hoarse, my clit pulsing hard against her tongue, out of breath, I felt sated like I don't remember feeling in so long.

I pulled her back up and kissed her, tasting myself and the familiar taste of her tears on her lips. I remember that afterwards her first words were « I wish I could stay. » and I tried to make her feel better by answering « I'm not sure we would get a lot of sleep if you did Caroline, and I think you need a decent night of sleep after all this.»

But it did hurt, the thought of her having to leave. I thought of how different it was though. Her having to leave because of real constraints. Not needing to leave. Needing to be alone rather than with me.

How you were never really able to stay the night. Because there would have been no point. Because I just couldn't be the one to share that type of intimacy with you. Because even if she was thousands of miles away, she still took up all the room in your heart. We laid there, in silence, listening to each other's busy thoughts in the moonlit bedroom, as reality was slowly hitting us back, the school, classes to prepare, markings to do, William, Laurence, Dad's illness, Celia, bloody John, finding time to escape again and the logistics of it….. Until hunger pulled us out of bed and into the kitchen, to now cold fajitas.

I think i have found her Sarah. It's so early, I know. But I think I have. I think I know now what it meant. Why you couldn't let me in. And I know now that you really tried. I think of Caroline, of what we have, of what we have started writing together. And I know now that something took, in a way that I haven't known before. I can feel myself chose her, day after day, on so many stratified and intricate levels that I can't even fully decipher them yet. I'm too old to even entertain the idea that i couldn't be happy without her. But, I am also old enough to know, as you have shown me, that if we find the words, the ways to allow ourselves what we have been handed so graciously, this most precious thing, then we have a shot at what you and your wife have. I know that this doesn't come often in a lifetime, if at all.

Merci Chérie.

Kate


	5. The K Diaries : March, Wild is the Wind

Hi beautiful tangofic community, I have been marveling at the wonderful writing and just loving reading all of you. I have received beautiful heartwarming encouragements to continue this Kate focused fic, and i have managed to add a new chapter I truly hope those who enjoy this story will like the development. This chapter is darker than others and contains references to grief and loss of loved ones, so maybe not suited for everyone.

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7th March 2012

She came earlier than I thought. And that's the only reason she caught me doing it. We had said 4 o'clock so I thought I had time. She came earlier and stood there listening. I was playing « Wild is the wind » like I do every year for her, for Sasha on the 7th of March. It's the first time in years I don't go back to London, to Mrs. Pierce and play it for her and whoever is attending the memorial. I wonder if it'll ever be different. If it'll be just another day, sometime in the future. It's been years now, since I've lost her. Since the possibility of that happening, losing someone I love, of the lurking abyss to engulf someone I love anytime, of any perfectly normal day, appeared into my life. There is another way, I'm sure, for me to remember her, to celebrate her, than for the fear to form again, in my stomach every year. The heaviness. The disbelief, still, after all these years. At how her life could have been taken from her that way. Robbed. How she was stolen from us all at sixteen. She called again this year of course. Mrs Pierce. Amanda. It s funny how I can call her Amanda but in my mind, she is still Mrs Pierce. This time, when she asked me if I am happy, with such purpose, as if my happiness could be some kind of revenge on the theft of her daughter's life, I was glad, I could answer that I was, without feeling like I was misleading her, I could tell her that I was and feel it. Really feel it. I know that it is painful too, but that eventually this is the only medicine for her. To know that someone who's loved Sasha, who still carries her in her heart, has some joy. It means she also, can let herself experience it.

I have this feeling sometimes, that Sasha, may have sent her to me, sent her on my path. They are so similar. There is this quality about Caroline, that reminds me so much of her. Something both strong, unbelievably strong and deeply vulnerable. Her passion too. Something solar.

I felt her before I even saw her, I felt the weight of her stare on my back as soon as I stopped playing. Then her hand claps punctuating the air at the heavy rhythm an of an iron marble dropped on the floor, each one drawing nearer and nearer to each other. I didn't turn around. I didn't want her to see my tears. I listened for the impact of her contact as the shock of her heels on the hardwood floor grew nearer but the kiss she lay on the nape of my neck when she got close enough was so soft that I didn't even flinch from the surprise. « That was absolutely amazing, Kate. So beautiful. So sad.» I though I was safe with her, but it turns out I was wrong. She is in tune with music, just as much as any musician would, maybe more. She feels it all. A natural. Guess i shouldn't be surprised. She asked me to play it again. I managed to change the subject by kissing her. We only had a few minutes together today. I was so relieved when she sat next to me. I'm surprised at how much of a pull there is already. How much I need her already.

She asked me the question I knew had been coming «You look so different when you play, it's like you're more yourself. Why didn't you pursue this, a solo career, as a pianist.» I told her the short version «Double tendonitis, had to stop playing for 2 years, never got the level back. » I think I said. I didn't tell her the rest of it just yet. How it still hurts every minute of every day. How my neck and forearms feel like stone if I don't coax them into tenderness everyday, warm showers, stretches, massage every week. That ccasionally playing is all I can do. That the 8 to 12 hours of daily practicing flew out of the window when numbness took over. I didn't get into what it feels like to have your limbs fail you. To find yourself in a battle with your own body. To realize that something as silly as slight numbness in my right thumb, grew to the point of erasing everything afore me. To realize that your head is there, your heart is there but that your limbs simply fail you. Simply won't comply. Just like with the babies. I don't want to stain us just yet. I want everything to be possible for a bit more time.

I thought about telling Mrs Pierce about Caroline. But I still want to keep it inside, just for me, for a bit more. Maybe because things are going so fast, too fast. That moment that we shared yesterday at the piano was one of the only one where we were still in our time zone. The Caroline and Kate timezone. Ever since her birthday, a couple days ago , it seems that we have been swallowed into an other dimension. Our suspended time, weeks and weeks of slow burning desire, and delicious angst, just for us, gone. Our longing looks, lips brushing on each other's ears, as we lean in to whisper something, gone. Our long stretched out hours making love where time stood still, just a few days ago, right here in my house, on this very bed. All of this seems to have vanished to make room for accelerated, maddening rhythm where we both struggle to keep up. It started so well, her birthday at first, it was so divine. Her text message during the day after she got my voice message was so cute i can't resist writing it down here, on my journal, keeping a trace « Kate darling, your happy birthday message played on the organ painted a smile on my face all day. Wine is perfect for tonight. Don't worry about bringing anything please, I already unwrapped my present yesterday at your place, remember, thanks, by the way, it was very ….tasty ». Discovering this whole new side of her. And loving it, being surprised by it. The two kisses we shared when I got there, as William was getting Lawrence, were so tender, so sweet. The language we create together, vibrant, palpable. Sent my head spinning, and my heart hoping wildly. And then if feels like we went from the delicious romance to the tasteless soap opera plot in a mater of seconds as soon as Judith appeared.

William fainting leaving me with Lawrence and his unflinching stare of an adolescent who instantly hates you, as they seem to know exactly what you want to do to _their mother, _even before Gillian's call. Caroline leaving with Judith in the car. The whole evening, our evening, being ripped away from us. And then, as the events unfolded, the distinct sound of our bubble, the one that had been sheltering us from reality, bursting into thin air when Lawrence took Gillian`s call. Realizing that John told everyone, in the most revolting way. Her face when she came back from the hospital. How vulnerable she looked. How I had to be the one to tell her what happened, that the evening actually got worse than just her having to drive her husband's mistress to the hospital on her own birthday. That now, the two people she cares about the most, with William, her mother and Lawrence, were told about us by John. Drunk John.

Not on our time, not when we decided it, that we were ready, that they were. But now. Through John s inebriated rants to the whole family. And that they are both upset. I wanted her birthday to be so much more. She deserves so much more. Laurence's pain, after he understood it all. How scary it is all of a sudden to realize how full her life is.

Writing these words in bed with some Nina Simone, that usually does the trick. Carol wanted me to go out tonight, wanted me to tell her all about what's happening, she knows me so well. But I decided to stay in and try to process this.

How blinded I have been by my desire for her. It seems like everyone knows, before we even know what we are. Before we've even had time to find ourselves, time to learn each other. She seemed so relieved when she told me that she had told John. Just a few days ago. So proud of herself. Thinking about it, i feel like this was a defining moment. I was so moved that she was finally acknowledging us in such a meaningful way, but also so worried, I think. I could tell then that she may not have understood fully the implications of telling him. Realizing too, that maybe I haven't considered them all either.

Going from tentative kisses a few weeks ago to being a very real potential part of her children's life. Being responsible for some of the heartbreak they'll go through as their mother comes out. All of this started to become so real, when I had to face angry and hurt Lawrence's stare yesterday. Just when I thought we would stop and process this a little bit and get a bit of perspective she tells me about the diner, with her mother and Alan tomorrow! I mean we barely know each other romantically, past our friendship; we haven't even truly sat down and talked about our relationship and we are already having family diners. But I was so touched , so moved that for her it was obvious that she would want her mother to meet me, and the rest of her family that of course I didn't want to disappoint her. It's ironic how out of the four out and proud lesbians I have dated, one of whom i was passionately in love with, none of them ever introduced me to their mother. I thought I'd have much more time to prepare myself for this but I want Caroline to know, to feel that I am there for her that way. Because I know that her life is full but that she definitely wants me in it. Wants to try it out. Even though she hasn't said anything remotely resembling ' I love you' I feel like, this diner, how she told her ex and her son, what she does, her actions, speak louder than words. And it's another thing I love about her. Still I cannot shake the feeling that this is way too early. Caroline keeps repeating that she doesn't care about her mother's opinion anymore. I know better of course. We are all more or less programmed to care and she is no different. I know she'll be devastated if it doesn't go well. I remember the enthusiasm of coming out and how no matter how you have prepared yourself so many reactions are not what you expected. I want to protect her, shield her from all this because I wonder if she really is ready.

Not so long ago, she was dumping me, rather unceremoniously, in her office, and saying this wasn't really her, and now we are having an out and proud family diner, it s jut hard to keep up, I'm going with the flow but i m so scared we will get hurt.

I remember losing Aminata's friendship to this, how surprised I was. How for weeks I kept calling, refusing to understand, to even think that it could be this, that my exploring this part of who I am could actually come between us and shatter a twenty year old friendship, that she would part our trio, the one we had formed with Sasha, and still formed after she passed, in so many ways. but eventually it sunk in, she just couldn't deal with it. She never said it, outright, which I think is even more painful in a way.


	6. Chapter 6 : Wild is the wind part 2

CHAPTER 6 , March, Wild is the Wind - Part 2

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March 8th,

I reached for the notebook as soon as I got home, didn't even take my coat off. Writing this, I realize I'm doing it again, with the familiar white knuckled grip on my fountain pen, I'm drawing a lifeline on the page. Word after word. I think of those days, when all the evidence of Spring around seemed to be mocking me wherever I went. I couldn't escape the burgeoning flowers, the insipid tenderness of the sun, when all I wanted was the harsh cold on my skin again, the barren tree branches, the numbing blizzard.

I know that I am treading this path again. That there will always be this resonance every Spring from now on. Added to Sasha's day. Trying not to sink into those waters again. I'm hoping that it'll work, that like it did three years ago, these words can help alleviate it all. Help me avoid looking down again. Help me breathe through it. Through tonight's disaster.

The sting behind my eyes, my stomach churning, feeling like i'm going to be sick all the way home, sitting in the taxi; that silly Sinatra song that played on the radio, taunting me. I almost asked the driver to turn it off.

Every single word Celia spat, « You don't love her », « She's having you on », «You told me yourself », but above all, Caroline's silence, what she didn't say, all of this biting at me, burning me, washing over me, one nauseating wave after the other, leaving me breathless. Mom's voice too. Laced. Intertwined. "I thought you were perfect. The most beautiful thing I've ever accomplished."

I think of the pretense too, what I told Allan when he asked if I was ok : « tough as old boots, me », just to keep a bit of my dignity intact enough not to have to walk out of there completely bare.

I think of Dad. Of his expression when the pharmacist avoided touching his hand when giving him change time after time over thirty years. I realize now that maybe the worst part was that I was there too, witnessing this. Witnessing the professor being talked to as if he were a child. Witnessing him being ripped off of his dignity, stripped in front of his daughter by the slight disgust painted on the pharmacist's face.

I think of the three year old little girl who already knew of hatred of people who look like me. This blond little angel who turned ugly when she spat at me and shouted "go back to the jungle" at recess. I know it was my first day of school but I don't remember what grade.

How I just wiped my cheek clean with my hand, raised my head high like dad had said to do. But inside, yes the shock, the realization sinking in slowly. Just like tonight : Nope. Wrong again Kate. Still alone on that boat Kate. Not the one at all. She Just ... likes you a lot.

You know the drill. Wipe it off, keep your head up high and leave. Don't run. Don't give them the satisfaction. Dignity intact.

Ball of pain stuck in my throat. The vertiginous doubt again. Was it there all along? Am I just welcomed entertainment for her in the throes of divorce, one witty way to get back at John, finally. Just someone she «likes a lot», nothing personal really, just nothing more. Am I that person again. That transitional person. That in between person. Not the real thing. Just like with Sarah. All the women I've loved really. Writing with a pulsing ball of pain stuck in my throat. Tears not far. In disbelief. In shock. I just wonder how, how i can have been so mistaken, how I can have deluded myself to the point of not seeing the obvious before.

Writing while shoving my tears away now. The impossible gymnastics again.

I wonder if the right woman for me is even out there.  
>I miss Richard and how unequivocally in love with me he was.<br>I wonder if this is a way to punish myself again, for being gay. For being me. Why the unattainable women. Every time.

I know that I can't let this, let her unravel me. I fought so hard for my recovery. Fought so hard to see the blessings everywhere, to feel fortunate instead of cursed. The potential for relapse is everywhere in this. I have to protect myself.

Just took a break, wrote my resignation letter and had some soup. I thought i would make me feel better. That writing it would help. But it hasn't. It won't be long until it does though. I know that I wouldn't be able to stand it. Seeing her every day. Knowing what we could have had, that this is another woman who simply doesn't love me enough. Feels like such a mess though. I can't imagine leaving my students. Leaving this life that I've made for myself, here. This life that I have conquered. After the devastation three years ago. Can't imagine having to pull myself away again. It feels unfair. Absurd.

I almost staid, I almost let her convince me. I am scared to look at that but I did. The pull is so strong. My desire for her so palpable, all the time. Every time. But above all the hope. The relief, even in the eye of the storm. Mother and daughter yelling at each other, tearing each other appart, but the love that was so apparent too. The easiness of it. Not like here, my house, my life, this place where babies haven't grown. Can't grow. Tonight feels like there is nothing I can do to cover the emptiness. Like everything is just a laughable attempt at that.

She sounded so sincere when she pleaded with me. « I was just trying to explain how it …..started. » I don't even know if we really started anything. Did we? Really?

Of course last week comes to mind. Our lovemaking. The truth of it. How open she was. Nothing has come close to this. I don't think she's deceived me; I just think that there isn't any room really. In her life right now. Of course now that it's all slipping away, that it's all gone down to just being a big embarrassing mess, I realize that I have been fooling myself about her. About my desire, its nature.

I was almost reassured when I watched myself fall for her, thinking I was done, finally, thinking it was behind me. Surely if I was falling in love with a 46 year old woman, all of me, the conscious part, the unconscious part, we had all finally moved on. Wouldn't be knocking ourselves against that wall anymore; surely, the obsession was behind me, the one about becoming a mother.

But as I teared myself out of the house, out of the circles of warmth that Caroline has created in her life, so naturally, from Lawrence to her , to William to her to Her mother to Allan, to her, this delicate almost visible ricochet,as I was actually loosing it, as it was getting further and further away from my reach, it finally sunk in: i realized then that I had fallen in love with the mother of my child. That at some level, I wanted that so much already I couldn't even see it. I wanted that with her, wanted it again. Watching her, the quality of her care, flaws and all, that's exactly what I fell for, what I wanted for myself and for my child. How could I have been so blind?

I know it's early days but I don't have regrets or shame. I'm pleased at that, at the compassion i find for myself. I feel the work with Phillis really has helped in that respect. Should probably go to London again for a few sessions in the next few weeks. Vulnerable time indeed. Who knows I might actually move back there, put some distance.

But i cannot fool myself, now. I know.

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I spent the whole day in a daze. Went to see Dad after all after classes. Didn't think I'd have the energy but I did. I tried to inhabit my life again. Realized the way in which i got completely sucked in. Into her dimension. The way in which she overlooks that. Takes it for granted so naturally. The blindness there. The same one I had for Richard and his endless unnoticed displays of attention. How could I reproach her with that when I have been the first one to make myself available for anything and everything. Ready to be sweapt away by the dizzing rhythm.


	7. March : Wild is the Wind, Part 3

**CHAPTER 7 : March, "Wild is the Wind" , Part 3**

Home again. I feel like I am home again, although, I am not, home, technically. I grabbed the notebook before getting into the car with Celia. Along with my favorite week end outfit , my grey Benetton jeans and and dark blue Muji shirt. I grabbed it right after it happened, that moment when I was getting ready to open the entrance door for us and Celia said « Why don't you grab a change of clothes, love… in case you find yourself too tired to come back here. ».

The acknowledgment in that sentence. The care. It almost meant more to me than the apologies she gave me. Everything was there. Nicely tucked in her careful euphemism. The recognition that Caroline and I are a couple, that we do sleep together. That she knows that. That it's ok, now. That she knows it makes her daughter happy.

That short sentence opened a door to me somehow and now I feel home, here with Caroline. More so in some ways, than in my own house right now, I think of how estranged i felt from my own life, just yesterday. Feeling like everything was just a cover up for what is indeed missing.

Now, Caroline is showering and I'm writing, in bed with a cup of tea next to me. Our first night together, our very chaste first night together. We were both so exhausted, emotionally spent, yesterday. Especially with the news of Allan's attack. It feels like the most natural thing too, being here, in her bed, in her world. I m still scared though, or rather I know I should be. The vertiginous differences between yesterday and today. The highs and lows that leave me breathless, quivering. But after yesterday, after finding her in that state, reddened eyelids, ashen complexion, almost palpable heartache, I know that I am not alone. That she is in this with me. That we are together. That this is not a lonely melody, desperately looking for accompaniment, a childish lullaby sung by a doomed lover.

No this is it, this is a song we are both singing, a duet where sometimes we are in sync with each other and sometimes, one of us skips a beat, finds themselves wondering where the other is, when in fact they are just there, waiting at the next measure, forgetting that the coda is coming up and that we will find each other there eventually, if we just listen , really listen to each other.

I really didn't expect for this to happen. For Celia to come all this way. To swallow her pride and come to me. I tried to stay with it, to feel the anger, to look as stern as possible when I opened the door, but I already could feel myself sway. I was moved that she would do this for Caroline, for us. Touched by her expression, a mix of contrition and flair. And, when we got everything out of the way- why she said all these awful things, why she reacted that way- I realized how much I liked her already. How her sitting in my living room, seemed like the most natural thing after just a few minutes.

I realized that i had been hoping for something to happen, for things not to just end that way. But I also knew Caroline would not try anything. That she would be so darned respectful of my wish, of what I wrote down on that resignation letter, that there was no hope there.

Trying to continue writing while the show is on. Caroline has come out of the show, and is now methodically choosing her clothes, a fluffy white towel wrapped around her head and another one around her body. I can almost hear her twirling thoughts, her mom, allan, me, the boys, John.… At this time on a saturday, I should already be at the nursing home and Celia is waiting for her at the hospital. I could also feel the mix of exhaustion and elation at everything that happened between us yesterday, in the smile she gave me when she came out of the shower. I can tell the fine line is definitely still there. All of her other worlds threatening to collide, if we are not careful. The work that still needs to be done there, the reconciliation.

It's quite a spectacle really. Just watching her chose each piece of garment, I think i m going to keep writing until i can't stop myself anymore, until i just have to take the few steps that separate us and unwrap her. I know that all it will take will be one slight tug on her towel. I can already tell, how quick the towel will fall, the muffled sound it will make when it pools at her feet, how lovely her damp skin will feel under my tongue when I start tracing a path along her neck, between her breasts…my mouth is already watering. Right now she seems completely absorbed in her garment selection, she's only peering at me from time to time, but I know the game is on, I know she is waiting for me. We've both been waiting for each other since last week really, since we first tapped into it, the source that we knew had been there all along, welling up. The one that came pouring out once we laid hands on each other.

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><p>So I did. Start something, I knew we couldn't finish, give the towel the gentle pull and start searching on her skin, with my tongue, before the towel even met the floor. Searching for a path, that is still so very new to me.<p>

Thinking of this now, sitting at my desk with Monsoon purring, curled in my lap, I'm so pleased that we were able to steal this moment.

She started whimpering and slurred « What took you so long? ...What were you writing about anyway? » I just kept kissing and licking, landing on new unexplored patches of skin and smiling at the same time. Then I moved away and finished drying her skin with the towel that I had retrieved at her feet. Told her « It's my journal darling. It keeps me afloat. » She said « I think you missed a spot » pointing to the nape of her neck first, and then to the tip of her right breast, and then between her thighs. That was almost more erotic than to actually make love to her. Lawrence's calls from downstairs pulled us from the spell, and reminded us that indeed, we would have to finish this some other time.

We just laughed, both feeling slightly guilty at how aroused we both were in the face of it all. Wanting each other so bad, while mom's probably wondering where I am, sitting next to dad already, at the nursing home, like she always is at this time on a saturday, like I should be right now, and while Celia is at Allen's side in the hospital, waiting for Caroline to come by, and of course Lawrence is donwstairs, waiting to be taken to Rugby practice…

Writing this from my home, the comfort of my study I realize I'm glad to be back and not only to take care of Monsoon. Although being close to her makes me feel at home, facing John, Lawrence and William can be quite unnerving. When I spoke to her earlier today, I felt disappointed at finding out that we wouldn't finish this today after all. That she was on her way to Halifax. I wanted her to « give me more than one caress », I felt very much in that mood of this « wild is the wind » song. But after a while, I realized that it is for the best. That rest from each other, from the intensity there, is also needed. In order to avoid the colliding, for us to have time to mesh things up, make it work within ourselves, and outside of ourselves.

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><p>She is in the shower again. My Shower this time. My place. But our same new two days old routine, I'm in bed, with a cup of tea tracing words on the page wile the water is running not far from me. Soon she will come out, wrapped in her towel. But this time everything is different. We have barely slept and it's not of because of wanting to "finish what we had started". But because anger kept us awake and scheming most of the night. Today it feels more like a routine in the middle of chaos. A routine you hang on to not to drown. Rereading the words from yesterday i can't help but laugh at how short lived the distance was, just a day later and we are back to full drama mode, after saying we would « do something tomorrow » and enjoying the space of that, yesterday morning, Caroline showed up on my doorstep unannounced in the evening with both William and Lawrence, all of them aggravated and hurt at being held captive of John's actions; what he had all of them witness. What he's been subjecting them to.<p>

And then, Caroline, once they were both in bed in my guest room, pacing the living room like a caged feline, letting it all out, all the anger, the disgust, the disbelief, positively furious, pacing restlessly, her eyes looking inward, unseeing, her features blurred by the relentless emotional turmoil of these past few days. Me trying to calm her down, but failing miserably, hoping I am wrong and that William and Lawrence are actually sleeping, and not, as I suspect, eavesdropping, trying to make sense of this whole sequence and being hurt again by what Caroline is saying, needs to say, needs to let out « …. selfish bastard, I can't take it anymore, Kate, he won't leave…. he's ruining everything, Kate, …..the boys, me and you.. Everything, the little bit of respect I still had for him, the little bit of esteem his own children still had for him. He's ruining it all…..Why did I chose him ? Why? Why have children with such a self-centered tosser? I know I did love him a long time ago but really why? How can I have been so blind, so reckless?… »

I finally convinced her to come to bed, to get some rest, to get some perspective. That she'd see things more clearly in the morning, but I knew, when we got to bed, I could feel that she could barely see me through her anger ….Our lovely morning promise of « finishing what we started » seemed like a distant memory….. In that moment I felt it too, i got in her mode, it was suddenly so clear, how he was ripping everything away from us. Steeling from us. All the moments we were supposed to have together. Steeling the moments we wanted to chose to tell everyone about us, then now the first moments of our lives, I saw it all and I felt furious too.

But I was still stunned when in the morning, before getting into the shower, she said, « Move in with me Kate » She didn't listen to my objections, she was adamant « I know, I know it s early but, don't you see? ...you are so good for the boys, we are so good together ...and John is trying to destroy it all! ... trying to prevent me from moving on... trying to prevent the boys from having a stable life, all because of his bloody midlife crisis! ...No I won't put up with it anymore, why should we? ...Why should we all put everything on hold in our lives until his tantrum is over?...Don't you see, ...it could take years! What will be left of us by then? ...I love you. You love me. We have something good together and we have to postpone everything because of him? Why? …Move in with me, Kate! ...Just for a little while, just so he finally gets the message and moves out! Then we can decide what we want to do…..»

I realized she'd said it again. « I love you ». The only other time was a couple days ago when I came back to her. Even then. After almost losing each other, she was struggling to let the words out. To be vulnerable in that way. I sat next to her, caressing her cheek, and she was laughing through her tears, of mingled joy and sadness: « Well I guess my big secret is out now, I guess you can see now what a mess I am without you, Kate…. »

I dived in the comfort of the laughter too, how warm that felt to be laughing together again, my hand on her cheek, coaxing the words out of her with each caress of my thumb, listening, she looked at me and then down at her hands at least half a dozen times before she finally took the plunge « …. I love you, Kate, I do….. I m such an idiot for not telling you before. I know i need to do better if you give me an other chance…. »

It was different this morning, she said it passing, as if it was something self evident, « i love you, you love me » , but i know it wasn't easy to say. I know that if she went there, it is because she really wants this, really wants me to move in with her. I knew right off the bat that this was far, very far from a good idea. That as frustrating as it is, divorce, breaking up a union like this one, takes time, takes painful, cumbersome, tedious effort. But I said yes, I accepted, at the end of this almost sleepless night. Even though I knew that what was speaking , in this decision, was anger. Her asking me to move in with her, didn't happen at the end of a romantic diner, after dancing around the subject of moving in together for weeks. And that also feels like something we won't have because of him. I know that it is way too soon and wrong on so many levels. But I said yes anyway, because I want to be there for her, because at this point, I am angry too, at everything he's already stolen from us. Because I am tired of waiting. I want to believe in this and I can tell that at some level that she really needs me to be there.

I realize that this could potentially hurt us. This haste. That it most likely will.

I wonder also, how will William and Lawrence feel about this.


	8. The Kiss of Life

Hi Tangofic lovelies, thank you so much for the nice reviews that keep me writing. I cannot tell you how much they mean to me. I would have stopped a long time ago without them, and I'm glad I didn't because I love finding out new things about these characters and what they mean to me.

I hope you enjoy this update. I really enjoyed writing it. Kate is very fragile in this chapter, there are elements referring to depression and miscarriage. Also It's a bit racier, with explicit lovemaking scenes, so be warned those who don't enjoy that.

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><p>Chapter 8 : The kiss of life<p>

« You gave me the kiss of life,

Kiss of Life.

You gave me the kiss that's like

a kiss of life.»

Sade

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><p>" Glimpses are all we get now. Glimpses of togetherness. Our moments together feel like rare eclipses, and the rest of the time I feel like we are moving around each other along well defined lonely trajectories. Who knew that living here, i would suddenly get lost in this paralyzing need, this numbing slow burning ache for her. I go through the day hungry for her skin on mine, for our fall into one another, thirsty for her taste, for her tears once again, famished most of the time. I don't know how this happens, how this keeps happening. I should be thrilled and I am. But being so close, so close to her and almost never being able to revel in « us » in what we share, is turning into a very intricate form of torture I find.<p>

Trying to hang on to the beauty of it. Of being able to see her, to be in her presence for the better part of the day. But all too aware that I might slowly be turning into one of them, the many people around, Lawrence, William, John, Celia, me, that are waiting around to take from her, to get a little bit of her attention. I see her try as best as she can, to attend to each of us as each crisis comes her way, one after the other. It's like she is stuck on some crazed ride. She attempts to fit each of us right back into our high performance tupperware once she's dedicated the allotted time. Keeping everything neat and tidy and manageable. It's both touching and unnerving. Having to share her attention with William and Lawrence is not what hurts. It's part of what makes it bearable actually, falling in love more deeply every time I watch her care for them; provide them with everything she can, go that extra mile for them every day, despite the overwhelming duties, the exhaustion, the guilt of knowing it probably won't be enough, in such a consistent courageous way.

But it's the sharing her with « Dr Elliot », with the veneer. With the heavy blanket of silly appearances she insists on keeping, the pettiness, the denial, the cowardice of it all that is even more blatant now that I live here. That's what makes it hard. Watching her feed me the bitter spoonfuls of untruths, of well clad betrayals, everyday; how good she is at it and most of all, how ready I am to accept them. Swallow them one after the other. How it's almost like I keep opening my mouth for more. Always ready to excuse this or that for the sake of the almighty «Dr. Elliot» fiction.

Caroline wonders how she's managed life without me after we've made love on Sunday morning. Tells me I'm the most beautiful thing that's happened to her apart from her boys. That sometimes she gets light headed just thinking of the fact that we could have never found each other. That we came so close to never knowing this, and then to losing it, this love that we have; then she kisses me again and asks what I want for breakfast.

Dr Elliot, uses this, uses us, to get back at John, when she flirts with me at the breakfast table just to shove it in his face, oblivious to the fact that she is staining us, staining me as she does that, hurting William possibly, only caring about her revenge, Dr Elliot takes what she wants mindlessly.

Caroline whispers « i want you so much, I'm so wet for you, Kate » and licks my earlobe before she straddles me and makes me come crying at night in her bed, my face pushed into the nearby pillow to muffle my cry. I'm spent, swimming in gratitude, she's caressing my cheek and smiling her Chestshire cat smile.

The next day, Dr Elliot « forgets » to introduce me to her cousin as we are walking around at WH Smith', almost pretending she doesn't know me. And then denies it. Insists that she just didn't think of it.

After our shower, Caroline sits me down on the granite of the bathroom countertop, smiling dangerously. She slowly kneels down on the stool she's carefully selected, spreads my legs open, and then lowers her heated mouth on me, drinks me up, lapping at me, licking me clean, patient, studious, stopping only to tell me how wonderful I taste, how thirsty she is for me all the time, that she's thought of doing this all day, that I drive her crazy, until the ocean tide has come and gone, and I am limp all over, useless for anything but laying down and catching my breath, a rag doll on her bed.

Dr Elliot assures with a saccharine smile « It just makes more sense to arrive separately Kate. We don't always finish at the same time. I do want to be discreet at work but I swear this is just more practical too.»

Caroline calls me in, placates me against her office door, just like the first time she did that a few weeks back, only this time she gave Beverly her afternoon. She kisses me while her hands wonder under my shirt, and after locking the door and showing me she's not wearing anything under her dress, she lets me fuck her on her desk, telling me as I m pulling her dress up and caressing her inner thighs, teasing her, that she'll die if I don't touch her right now and then whispering how she's mine, begging me to please make her come, then begging me not to stop touching her, whimpering in my ear, « please, harder Kate, harder…. » and then with her climax my name becomes a song, a chant, a prayer « Oh Kate, Kate, Kate …..».

When I try to confront her, Dr Elliot does what she does best, she becomes patronizing and lashes out: «Well, I just don't see why people need to advertise their sexuality nowadays, Kate. I've always been a private person, i don't see why that should change, because I'm….with …..a woman now ». Suddenly my name isn't even relevant. The prayer is forgotten, erased, never was, it's replaced by «…with a woman » along with the hundred other idiotic expressions she finds to avoid saying « lesbian, gay, lover or partner. »

Caroline says « I want to spend the rest of my life with you » in the corridor, before Assembly, and I can feel that she means it, even though she's surprised herself by saying it. Caroline smiles at me when i tell her « I can't kiss you here » and I know she wishes I could just as much as I do, that it is both painful and exhilarating for her too. That it pulses on her lips and burns behind her eyes too.

Dr. Elliot just wants to keep her lovely house and put me in it for warmer nights, but please during the day, everything should remain as it was before. The gayness cant show. Dr Elliot sincerely thinks it is possible and doesn't know why I don't see this is the best option for us. Why I wont just fit nicely into the little box she has for me.

When I tell her that I want a baby, Caroline stumbles, I can tell that she is hurt. That she is slowly sinking into panic mode even if her stride up to assembly is quite convincing. She knows this could be the end of us. She's stabbed, dizzy from the pain. But she never lets me down, she never ridicules me or try to pretend that this isn't what I want, what I deserve. She listens she stays curious. She hangs on. She wants the best for me. I can feel her literally hurt for me when I tell her about the miscarriages. All four of them. She listens even when I tell her about Greg, about what i have concocted in my own mind for us. And in that moment, as we have stopped our quick walk , next to the cricket players, I know that she sees herself there with me. Looking after me, welcoming a child into this world, our child, letting her heart expand. When I remind her that this isn't what she had planned, she smiles at me and just says « no it isn't », but her smile is so wide, so glorious. There is such a promise in that smile.

Dr. Elliot doesn't panic. She knows there is no room, no box for her to fit a baby in her neatly arranged life. She does what she does best when met with an unruly colleague, parent, student or an unfortunate turn of event for that matter. She budgets, estimates her costs, and gets ready to cut her losses if need be, but meanwhile, follows the procedure, uses all the tools in the manipulation box, from coaxing to rationalizing to threats, in order to force the unruly element back into the delineated patterns. She uses our love, my love, Caroline's, against myself, against herself, lying to herself comes in really handy in those moments, so she can have what she wants, or thinks she wants, a tranquil retirement with a lovely woman, who is not so hung up on meaningless unsavory labels as such as « gay » or « lesbian », a friend, really, that will warm her lonely nights, whoever that may be, someone who will be compliant and will fit nicely in her lovely house.

Caroline cries just looking at me, while she brings me to climax, with long passionate strokes, her eyes never leaving me, smiling through her tears. She tells me how beautiful I am, how it's just breathtaking every time. She gives herself completely to me and me to her. No pretense, no hiding place. Just us. Caroline leaves diner for me on the stove when I come home late after rehearsal, inquires about my Dad, tells me she is sorry because she couldn't find that Chardonnet I like so much at the store. Caroline has cleared the kitchen of any trace of peanuts it may have had with an almost scary systematic fury. She's learned about hidden peanut containing foods faster than any of my partners.

Dr Elliot really doesn't care who I am, or what I need. Although she won't admit it, It shows in her dismissive tone when she talks to me, and most of all when she keeps silent about us the minute it stops being convenient or unavoidable. She really cannot afford to care really. You see she's busy keeping up with appearances. Unaware that by now, everyone knows about us. Blind to that. Blind to how pathetic that is. How much of a turn off, how much of a let down. Blind to how much it hurts me. Hurts us. She just wants to keep the veneer, keep the polish and keep all the perks of straight life, thank you very much.

Caroline knows I have been crying the minute she looks into my eyes, when she kneels down and caresses my cheek, after King Lear. Caroline wants to know what's weighing heavy on my heart, she knows not to insist when I can't tell her right away. She suggests to talk about it in bed when she kisses me ever so softly. She gives me a kiss of life.

Dr Elliot was dressed to kill, in creamy white elegance and dangerous high heels, last night Dr Elliot was in full blown compartmentalizing mode that night ,she was not going to pass on the peanuts just because she was with ….a woman who is allergic to them. It didn't even register.

Dr Elliot gave me a kiss of death last night. That s why I am here, at the hospital, eating brussel sprouts, and writing these words today.

Facing the truth, not wanting to fool myself. Knowing now that Dr. Elliot, no matter how attractive and skillful she can be, was poisonous to me last night.

Facing the truth, knowing that maybe this is more than « a stupid thing to do ». That this carefully crafted schizophrenic life, the neatly sealed hermetic spheres, the Dr Elliot vs Caroline paradigm could destroy me. Leave me crushed on the floor, gasping for air, stuck in the box she wants to fit me in. Kissed to death.

Feeling like this new living arrangement is closing in on me, and that without noticing, i let myself into the closet all over again.

But if I m honest I know that I play a double game too. That there are two antagonistic forces running inside of me brought on by this love, our love.

Selfless Kate, endlessly adaptable Kate. The Kate that will fit into any plan Caroline has for me because I am more than happy to forget about the emptiness in my life, to forget about what is lacking. Because I know that I want Caroline in my life no matter what. Because I want to be hers, and I want her to be mine. I want it so much i can taste it. Because I simply cannot be wrong. Not again. Not after Richard and losing the babies. Not after Sarah.. Because I can't look at the grief it would be to think that the voice that started singing the minute I laid eyes on her was wrong. That the recognition there, was wrong, misguided. The Kate that can't let go. That becomes obsessed. That will brave doctors, mom, Richard, and prove them wrong, Prove them that this time it will work. The Kate that keeps doing the same things and expects different results. Every time. Until she crashes and the other Kate shows up.

Cynical Kate. Hopeless Kate. Tired Kate. Sadder but safer Kate. The one who knows that the most important thing to do is to protect herself. Survival mode Kate. Cut your losses Kate. The one that doesn't beat around the bush. The one who stares into the truth. Unblinking. Tough as old boots Kate. Keep your head up high Kate. Just wipe the spit off your cheek Kate. The one that knows she's probably better off alone anyways. The one that's tired of having to explain, to teach, to make herself visible to the ones who love her or claim to do so. Angry Kate. Don't fuck with me Kate. The one that won't forget. The one that won't swallow. The one that wants to teach Dr Elliot a lesson. Show her exactly how much she needs me. Shake her right out of closet bliss. Let her feel it.

I try to hold my moments with Caroline close to my heart and to remember that this is knew, that this is going so fast, that the process isn't easy that it takes a while and that I need to be patient with her, that this is a way to love her. But every time Dr Elliot acts out, takes a bite at who we are, shames us, sells us short, it's harder and harder to keep that space safe, intact.

It's only been a few days, since I have let myself hope again. Since I have let my hope grow again, since I've verbalized it, to myself, to Caroline. Despite Phyllis' words of caution, I haven't called. I haven't booked an appointment with her again. I know that this was the deal for stopping the therapy. That I should discuss any new project of getting pregnant with her first. That the potential for relapse is high and that this time there is no telling how deep the depression would be. Im finally off the medication. It's finally all behind me and just like that. Just as a response to Caroline's hushed « I want to spend the rest of my life with you », i started it again.

I can already feel it turn on me. Move in me. I can feel it morph from simple, light, open hope, to an unspeakable urge thats starts pushing everything aside again. Just like it did last time. I just lie there in my hospital bed, waiting for Caroline to pick me up and watch it grow inside of me. I watch it burn more and more in me, start pushing aside the love it grew out of. Watch it take over, past Richard's plea for us to please stop trying. For us to please consider adoption. Past his ultimatums, all of them. I watch it make me lie. Like when I pretend to Caroline that I can still « forget about it » , when I pretend to brush it off as a « daft idea » when I know that I am well beyond that already.

That I could put my life on the line. Again. That I am doing just that already. Putting it on the line. My life. I know that. Phyllis explained.

I don't know if it happened while starting to come up with imaginary names for a little girl with Celia, or just watching Caroline care for her boys and seeing right then what a wonderful mother she would be to our child. In a way that I really never could see with Richard. I always saw myself with a child but never with him as a father. But i know there is no stopping it now. I know that Greg will be down for it. That he will help. He is blond and blue eyed just like she is. It's perfect. I need to start making it happen, i know, every cell in my body knows this is my last shot at becoming a mother, it's way beyond rational.

Waiting would mean giving Caroline time to convince me otherwise, giving her the opportunity to buy time. She doesn't see that I don't have time. That every day not spent acting on this reduces my chances to the infinitesimal. The odds, all of them, are already against me as it is. It's not her fault. How could she. She just doesn't know that there is no getting this, getting pregnant, without getting my hands dirty. Not for me. It's either shoving all of my hard earned money into one of the biggest money making business ever known to medicine again, or asking a friend for his semen. It's not pretty or heart warming; It's what women like me have to do. The cursed ones. Fuck at precise times of day on precise days every months for months, years. Fuck when you have long forgotten what it would feel like to have any desire. Shoot yourself with crazy making hormones. Feel all the signs, the tender breasts, the swelling, and realize that the test is negative again. And then spreading your legs in front of a team of doctors, letting them insert the embryos , once, twice, three times, four, five, six, seven, eight nine times. And then four times, four consecutive times, thinking this is it. That the humiliation of it is over, that I will give life. Only to miscarry again. To lose the babies, all of them.

I know it's already with or without Caroline.

I have decided already. Or rather, the urge has. The urge that i have been pregnant with for ten years. If Caroline cannot get on board with this, if Dr. Elliot wins the war, then this is what I will keep from our love. Our child. The child that she may not want to raise but that she will have helped me will into existence. Finally. A child that will have taken ten years to conceive.

If this is what happens, she will truly have given me the kiss of life."


	9. Cry me a river

**Hi Tangofic Lovelies.**

**This update pretty much wrote itself, fueled by some lovely reviews and PM conversations. I truly hope you enjoy it. Just so you know, it does mention the Kate and Greg encounter that leads to her pregnancy (not the funnest part to write) as well as references to her miscarriages again.**

**Also wanted to let you know that I think this fiction is ending soon, I sense that there may be one to two more updates coming. On the plus side I get to give you happy Kate on at least part of the upcoming updates :) **

**Thank you so much for the support you are giving, for simply taking the time to read, for reviewing, and for loving these characters as much as you do. **

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><p>Chapter 9 : Cry me a river<p>

I m surprised that there are no tears, no tears at all, not anymore. There were so many before.

Mine, not right away, not in front of her, but embarrassingly enough, walking away from her office, on my way to teach 9F, after she broke up with me and actually called us, called what we have : «the other thing », just a few months ago.

Hers, Twice. With each one of her orgasms the first time we made love.

Mine, after the diner fiasco with her family, while being attacked by the unbearable lightness of Sinatra's «fly me to the moon», sitting in the cab, on my way back to my place. And then again writing about it in this journal, just a few pages back, they drowned a good part the words of that particular entry.

Hers, when I came back to her the next day; or rather what they left behind them, reddened eyelids and pupils, hoarse adorable voice, traces of smeared mascara on her cheeks.

Mine. While waiting for her to come back, lying on the sofa, my mind looping endlessly on Celia's

genuine shock at me daring to dream of a child with Caroline, just before her kiss sent me to the hospital.

Hers, as she watched the rise and fall of my climax the last time she made love to me, four days ago.

But now, it's dry eyes, for both of us. Dry heart. Deaf words cutting into bloodless flesh at the breakfast table of the hotel this morning.

It's been looming, bubbling up in me for a while now, so I expected for it to come out with tears, too.

But my anger is dry. And surprisingly soft.

It's as soft as the kiss she gave me last week that nearly killed me.

It's not Dr. Elliot's dismissive rants that sets it off. Not the the way she dismisses me by not even looking at me when I get to her table, patiently laying out the evidence of my betrayal like she would a reckless student, before getting ready to pronounce the headmistress' punishment.

Not even the fact that she booked two separate rooms. Not anymore.

It's that even now, even as we are being torn away from each other by something neither of us can completely name yet, she remains visibly contained, mindful of her surroundings, concerned, conspicuously making sure that we are not being seen, identified, noticed in that way.

She doesn't run to the reception desk to simply correct her mistake. She doesn't laugh it off by French kissing me in the middle of the hotel. No. Instead, she darts horrified looks when I dare to say the word gay. She whispers the poor excuse of «we can still sleep together » when I mention the separate rooms, actually thinking this is enough for me. For us. Missing the point entirely still.

That's when I realize that she is blind to what she is doing to us. And that maybe, surely, I've enabled her to stay blissfully ignorant. That I fooled myself, that despite what I thought, I cannot love her out of it. Love her past the daily compulsive betrayals, past the delusion. Not unless I want to drive myself completely insane.

The gap is suddenly gigantic, enormous, so strikingly apparent, it's a mystery I'm only seeing it now. We are actually on two different planets. Speaking a completely different language. The massive blow of the sudden anger borne clarity stills my heart, sends my head spinning. Here, I am thinking of having a child with a woman who can't even book a double room for us for my birthday. Of course she's going to try to stall me. Try every trick in the book. Find that Greg is a jerk. Find excuses. Buy time. Anything, to keep both of us neatly tucked away in her lesbians-of-the-50s closet of a house. It's laughable really. But laughter doesn't come. It can't find it's way to my body, to my face. Instead, it's a flash of petrifying heated anger that takes over and hurls a deceitfully soft answer to her "Are you dumping me? » out of my lips:

« No », it's suddenly so crystal clear, so simple, almost a relief, this is not even a break up because «I don't think anything's ever really started between us…a couple of embarrassed fumbles…. »

Dry sadness. Sharp edged words aimed at conjuring whatever formless mess was there, between us. Trying to name it so that it hurts less. To will it out.

It's like this high fever we weren't aware of having has finally subsided leaving us, painfully sober. Sore. The passionate lovemaking, hurried moving-ins, longing kisses, all of this becomes a blur, an unspeakable mess under the unflinching light of the morning breakfast table. What remains is this ever growing gap between us, and a sea of mournful anger.

Dry anger. Dry lips, parched throat, dry eyes, arid skin, the anger drains everything. I rise and go back to my room. My throat tight with the pulsing ache of rage.

I know that this is my chance then. The continuous white flow of it, coursing through my veins will make it easier. That and the sincere affection I have for Greg. I couldn't believe I would be ovulating on my birthday when I checked the dates a week ago. It was almost too good to be true. But i had decided to be reasonable. I was prepared to let redness, cramps, fleshy bolts of blood of yet another unused egg of mine, be flushed down the toilet along with another chance at conceiving, because obviously, we needed to talk, digest, make sure everyone was ok. Make sure Caroline was ok really. Take time to think and then start trying next month maybe.

But I don't need her, or her approval anymore. So I call him as soon as I get to my room telling him I'm ready, that we should try now. He's a bit surprised but he comes to my room right away.

I know this should feel familiar, I should remember this, remember a way to enjoy this but once Greg is naked in front of me, waiting for me to collect him in my arms, give him permission, I truly feel like this was someone else. I have no memories of this whatsoever. It's like everything has been washed away, cleared from my memory.

We try once but the dryness has reached my sex too. It's painful. Greg goes to the pharmacy and buys lubricant while I wait in the hotel room and down two more glasses of Chinon. I don't think I've ever had wine so early in the morning in my entire life. But it works. The wine washes my quenched anger burnt senses. When Greg comes back he finds me laughing at how absurd all of this is.

We try again. The wrath is helpful. Makes it less uncomfortable, turns into arousal and to my surprise, a climax comes, along with a flash of her skin on mine, the smell of our lovemaking, her taste on my tongue, and all of a sudden I'm sickened by his presence and above all by his irritating kindness.

I think I know right away that I am pregnant. I know right away that it worked.

When the tears finally come, right after Greg Leaves, and they shatter me for long stretched out minutes, I feel the most puzzling mix of utter joy and purulent sorrow.

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><p>When the pregnancy tests comes back positive two weeks later, I almost call her.<p>

By then I know the sharp edged words did not do their magic.

That despite all my efforts to will it away, the pull is still there. That the mess was beautiful. Worth everything.

I know that our trajectories may now be wider, might curve differently, but we still revolve around each other.

I know something is still growing there.

I remember her face when she comes to my classroom and inquires, swallowing her pride, if Greg and I have made a start. I know that she still cares.

I almost call her because I can't help feeling that this is our child. This is our child in my belly and that she should know.

But then I don't.

It's not anger that makes me stand my ground. That makes me remind her that really she has no right to ask me that anymore by saying that I have finished what i came here to do, so I am now leaving.

It's something else entirely.

I remind myself of how horrified she looked the first time I mentioned a baby.

I remind myself of how hopeful I was at this stage the last four times.

I remind myself of all the ways she tried to dissuade me, and I don't call her because I know this is unfair. Because if we got back together now, neither of us would know if she really did so willingly. Because I took the choice away from her. Nothing will ever change that. Greg will for ever be the biological father of our child. I will have for ever imposed a way of conceiving our child no lesbian couple I know would actually consider.

Because I know she loves me enough to take this on when she really doesn't want to, when maybe she really cannot afford to. Because that might unravel her eventually. The way our child was conceived, if I were to impose that on her. If I were to come back to her.

Because the odds are small and I could miscarry anytime.

I know that I don't have a right to subject her to that. To the possible relapse it would undoubtably trigger. Not when I kept her out of the loop. Decided without her how our child will come into this world.

I don't call her because I know this isn't fair to her. I can't impose this on her. Not when this was my decision.

So, I decide to wait for the 12 week mark instead. To wait for it to be Kate McKenzie the employee addressing her boss. Letting her know of her pregnancy.

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><p>Amazingly this day has actually come. I can let myself hope, I can let myself imagine that this pregnancy will end with a living breathing child in my arms.<p>

Writing these words in the journal is a of strange form of celebration. The only one I can allow myself for now. No one knows except Phillis and Dr. Mensah. It makes things lighter to bear. I want to keep it that way. I haven't told mom or Greg.

I do realize this is probably because I want to tell Caroline before I tell anyone else.

I will tell her tomorrow.


	10. Good Morning Heartache

This is the penultimate chapter tangofic lovelies, thank you so much for following this fiction and giving me all the lovely feedback and reviews. Thank you so much to Shaloved for letting me borrow the "unthrowable" bouquet, and thanks so much to my beta for catching some of the typos :) .

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><p>CHAPTER 10 : Good Morning Heartache<p>

Harrogate, December 8, 2013

My love,

I don't know how not to do this. I have tried. Tried not to let these pages become a way to prevent the grains of sand from being swept away. But I can't. I find that it's impossible, it costs too much. I want to keep a few of them tucked right there, in the hollow of my hand, and that scares me, Caroline. I cannot release the grip, let them fall. Accept that these tiny little details about the beginning of this child's life , each one of them like a grain of sand, should just be swept away. That no one is there beside me counting them. Looking at them. Marveling upon them. Worrying about them. Cherishing them. Not like I am. Of course mum loves hearing about them, and so does Sadie, but it's not the same. They are not about to parent this child. They are not part of the equation. This formula that results in a child. A wanted child, a desired child. They didn't will it into conception at the end of a sunny afternoon stroll outside a playing field. I should let them go of course. The tiny little details that only mean anything to me. And you, maybe. And whoever will parent this child in the future. Be swept away, be gone. Just like I should throw your bouquet. It's embarrassing really how many times I've retrieved it in the bin, how many times I patiently picked out the damp tea leaves, or pieces of fruit out of the faded petals and sat it again in the vase of my study, under Monsoon's acquiescent stare.

So I guess, this is what this letter is. Telling you about the details, the grains of sands. Things even I will forget along the way. I have no idea why I find myself needing to write this. Why I find myself needing to keep this record for you when I know that my resolve, although shaped differently now, after all these months, the one about not wanting us to be together again, is untouched. Just like the reasons for it are. If I needed any proof of this, driving Lawrence over to yours, and being met with John was a stark reminder. Things haven't changed. He'd still be there raining on our parade. I'd still be a loose fixture roaming around in your life. And so would this child. It was written all over your words to me on that day. We'd still be « something nice that's happening », you'd want to, surely. I know that. I could see it in your eyes when you came. But you really couldn't put me first. Put us first. And even if you could, in time, it wouldn't be fair really. Imposing this child in your life when you haven't even been able to choose how to conceive it.

Maybe this letter is also an attempt at finding a way to talk to myself again. I haven't written in this journal since I was in your office and I told you about us, me and this child, going past the mark, the 12 weeks one, for the first time in five pregnancies, being able to allow myself to dream this child into life, to relax, to dare thinking that my body might not turn on me this time.

I thought it would be hard to tell you, to be there again, like puppets on a string. A sad reenactment of the way we sat in front of each other many months ago, when you dumped me, in your office. You were already avoiding my eyes back then. I was expecting to feel the tugs of the invisible puppeteer on our stings, keeping us impossibly far from each other once again, maneuvering our stiff limbs, hearts, words, in the mechanical motions of absurdly wasted love mixed with protocol .

But as soon as I walked in, I found myself grateful that the familiar dotted lines were there for us to go by, lean on, to safeguard us from hurting each other any further. It felt different from the usual agony of running into you in corridors. Each time it happens, always when I least expect it, when i have actually managed some kind of oblivious state, I think that the most painful part is having to pretend I'm not crashing inside.

I know it is crazy, but I wonder, I truly wonder if those were tears i heard in your voice when you congratulated me. I know it couldn't have been, that if anything you are probably relieved that this isn't your life now. Having to welcome a newborn in a few more weeks and contemplate chronic sleep deprivation well into your early fifties.

I'm suddenly aware of how oblivious I have been to the seasons since my birthday. Reading the last few entries of my journal, it's almost like summer never happened and fall was swallowed in silence. The urge took over everything like a giant riptide. It's interesting how I didn't even bother to date the last two entries. I wrote them in such a state, it almost feels like it was an other person writing, it feels like I went on some kind of uninterrupted fall into the urge. A fall with no season. There is no trace of the summer in my words.

I dove into the silence after that. Just like I did when i could tell I was falling in love with you. There were no words in those beginnings. No words when I started letting myself dream about this child. None for conceiving the premise of our love. No written words from myself to myself. No analysis, no distance. I just let the space grow inside of me, in silence, as leaves reddened and fell. Left the pages blank. There was only feeling the wave expand, take root, take over. Both times. Until, come December, reaching the point where words had to come out, be written, be consigned there.

Or maybe the words could only be spoken, could only be told, formed in my mouth to be heard; i could not commit anything on paper just yet, it was too fragile, much to fragile. I had to keep everything for the cessions with Phillis. Going to London every fortnight. Letting my words come out, while tucked, wrapped in the safety of the armchair waiting for me, Phillis unchanged, after all these years, just a few more wrinkles about her hazel eyes, her inward smile the only prompt i needed to let them flow out of me.

I drew us for her, Caroline. I let her see the shape our love took and discovered it myself while doing so. I had to do it again several times. Erase everything and start over. Anger led me to draw a caricature at first. But by October, I think I was able to see even fleetingly what we were. What we are. Trying to make sense out of this. Out of the whirlwind of this life-kissed-summer-less year. It took a few sessions to get there, the better part of this summer I was completely blind to. Several hour long chunks of time of letting my voice resonate in the familiar four walls of her office. Many occasions of slipping into that dimension, clay in hand, giving shape and form to what happened. Hours of her not buying what I had to sell, digging deeper, asking me to ask more out of myself without words.

Little by little I started to see it, started to see that as much as there is agony when I see you, as much as my day can be a variation between the almost pleasurable pain of Dinah's «Good morning heartache» to the sickening sorrow of Carmen 's «Round Midnight», I am grateful for the anger that had me press «pause», more efficiently than my useless prayers for pride ever did. That had me recognize the much needed solace available there, in this distance between us. That although I am sorry for hurting you, for not knowing how to do it in other ways, I am grateful for the distance I claimed for myself, for us. For recognizing that you simply weren't ready. For allowing myself to keep all of my words, all of my forces into conceiving this child. For letting myself delve into this, oblivious to the seasons, looking only inside, keeping the demons at bay, and making, crafting, inside my body, my mind, my heart.

I want to tell you about so many things but the first thing that comes to mind is the quality of my sorrow, of my ache for you. It informs my whole experience of conceiving this child. I worry about that . But i have decided that there is joy too in this gigantic resounding echo.

I want to tell you of how surprising it is to me that we refer to the "moment of conception". As if conception wasn't there, taking place for nine months; day after day, this fabricating of a being. Inside of me. The push and pull of my body morphing, my skin, stretching a bit more every day. My entire life force sucked into it, my thoughts rambling between daring to imagine, to whirling questions about the being about to grace my life and paralyzing scenarios of redness and pain being the first messengers of the curse still being there, active.

I'm exhausted from this constant work, but i have made this pregnancy an all consuming practice. I am ready for bed at 6 o'clock on most days but it is not the fatigue of depression, the dull numbing of my senses. It is the tiredness that comes with making. Creating. Like my days at the Royal Academy. The beautiful sleep I had then. There is beauty in this tiredness. I strip down to the basics. I have recovered the athlete ways I had then. Monitoring the intake of food, of emotions, of thoughts. The changes in my body. Gathering a team around me, around this massive desire of mine, gynecologist, physiotherapist, homeopath, Phillis, mum, Sadie, my cousin whom you've never met either. I'm both grateful and alarmed at my strength, at my self-sufficiency. I see mum and Sadie, but I'm mostly grateful to be alone. Just like I was back then. I avoid anyone too consuming naturally, it's not an effort. I dive into playing my piano, breathing. There are a lot of highs and lows and I feel such dramatic energy from this child already. That's another surprise, Caroline, the personality I can already sense with such clarity. This is not a Rose, not a David. This is much more a Nina, an Antoine. Someone with lots of passion. This child chose its first moment to kick when I was playing La Traviatta, vacuuming, Caroline. Not a peaceful moment where i was reclining on a couch reading, humming a song.

I want to tell you that it's not the lonely nights, not the absence of your lips on mine, your warmth, your touch, your laughter that has been the hardest. The sting of this is painful, sharp but bearable. Maybe because I expected it. Had it in mind when I broke up with you. Went through it in the aftermath of the Sarah devastation. It's familiar. It's expected. But there is no word for how I miss knowing what you'd say. Not knowing what you'd have said looking at the first ultrasound. Seeing the changes in my body occur without your words curving around them. That pain is not sharp, its mute, stretches out, lingers, like a relentless ostinato playing at the back of my mind.

I want to tell you about Linda and my epiphany of the flesh last month. It was so refreshing, so pleasing to be so unequivocally wanted by someone decidedly unapologetic about who she is. Someone so sure, so confident and proud of her desire for women. When I got into her hotel room in Soho, I knew why I wanted to let her make love to me. I knew that I wanted to make my body understand, to make it stop aching for you. To erase us somehow. To bring about some kind of amnesia. I wanted to break the spell, validate the distance between us one kiss at a time. Mark had been telling me about her for months. The woman that goes around with my Wurlitzer, that I hadn't even met. I was the first one surprised at her obvious lust over my pregnant body. I felt like it was not only her kissing me. Wanting me. It was like this past life, coming for an embrace. She is the exact age I was when I started touring, twenty seven, and so much more gifted at it than I ever was. So much freer. This Linda episode washed over me in a seamless sequence. Catching a glimpse of you in the corridor the day before, the internal fall I've gotten used to, your eyes averting mine, then catching the train to London the next day, finding myself in Phillis' office for my 2 o'clock appointment, under the patient scrutiny of her stare, and then after the show, in the smoky green room, encased Linda's unblinking lustful gaze, as Mark was introducing us to each other, smirking all along. I was surprised to feel no nostalgia at all, but complete joy at seeing what has become of the band. It was like seeing deeply loved estranged family again. I was surprised at the affection in Mark's eyes when he saw me pregnant. I didn't tell him over the phone. He found out by seeing me.

I knew she wanted me and was surprised to find myself attracted to her too when I hadn't been able to even notice anyone but you for months and months before we even found each other, when i didn't even seek to question this condition of mine, this acquired blindness to anyone but you.

But I was still astounded when she asked me to come to her hotel room and spend the night with her. Linda and her purple yoga mat stretched out in her hotel room. Her conspicuous Californian ease around life, around desire. The easiness of her kisses, her youth. Her obvious amusement at my accent and my ignorance of most of the sexual terms she used. Her sun kissed afro and smooth cinnamon skin, her New England Conservatory education gone wild. And then in the morning, after gulping down an appalling beverage she calls « green smoothie » made with the blender she carries everywhere and forcing me to have some after a ten minute long new age monologue about toxins, her speech about the joys of polyamory occasionally interrupted by the constant flipping between one electronic device and the other that made me feel so old. I felt so hopelessly set in my ways with my journal and fountain pen and my attachment to books made of ink and paper, and cups of teas in cafes and desperately monogamous ways where I actually felt like I just cheated on you the whole time when we broke up months ago. The painted smile on my face as I listened to her, trying to enjoy this London adventure but really already so ready to trade it for a morning in my cottage with Monsoon on my lap and a good book in my hands. Linda who unknowingly gave me a taste of how I made you feel when I accused you of being « too old to change ». How ruthless I have been really. And then, the sequence coming full circle again on monday morning, upon seeing you, the internal fall, unaltered. If anything, even deeper, more pronounced. The realization that It would take more. Much more.

I know that the surface of my resolve is uneven, chipped. My mother's incorrigible sense of contradiction is definitely to blame for this too. She's currently engaged in a silent protest in your favor that has me dumbfounded. I thought she'd be thrilled when I told her we broke up but ironically, without having even met you, she is irrevocably taken with you. It's nothing too overt of course. You've never met her but suffice it to say she is a woman with a distinct mistrust for words and iron cast opinions that she only shares sporadically usually drenched in copious amounts of sarcasm and disdain. She wouldn't dream of making direct comments about my personal life and likes to use hyperbolic ways to make herself understood instead. It would be funny if it wasn't so infuriating. This is a woman who barely acknowledged Richard's physical presence in a room beyond the absolute bare minimum, for the whole length of our marriage. All she had to say when I told her we were separating was « Oh. I see. Well I guess you'll get granny's china back before he's destroyed every single piece of it then, nice surprise, I suppose. Such a clumsy man.» I don't know what it is really since you haven't even met. I find myself wanting to tell her, « Mum, she is a woman, you are a fervent catholic, aren't you a bit relieved? » But I know better. Her ways are impenetrable just like dad's always said. So imagine my surprised when upon telling her the news, that I was pregnant, but that we weren't involved anymore, she ignored the first piece of news to focus on the second and actually asked a couple of direct questions about the break up. I knew she wouldn't want to comment on my pregnancy. She collected the shattered pieces of my soul when depression stroke after the forth miscarriage. The week after that she brought me an « interesting article » she carefully cut out in a paper about the difficulty of coming out as a later in life lesbian when still married to a man and left it on my kitchen counter when she left. She was there when Lawrence stayed over and kept going on and on about « what a nice young man » he was and then added the lethal « poor woman, it's no wonder she's a bit tentative after being married to such a specimen. Anyone would understand that.» I've often thought it was a pity we didn't stay together long enough to have Celia and her meet one day, and just sit back and let the show begin, with a bowl of popcorn maybe.

Of course writing it here in my journal means this letter will be unsent but I truly hope not unread. I imagine reading these words for you some day. I wonder what shape our truce will take. How we will find our way to each other again. Amazingly, I have no doubt that we will. Just like I have no doubt that I cannot let it be now. I wonder what color will your love for this child be? Will you be the auntie that we visit on Sundays, or the distant unofficial godmother who once gave me this kiss of life, the one that allowed me to try my wings again. I don't let myself think of more but I know that something about our love has yet to be written.

Avec tout mon amour,

kate


	11. The second time around

**Here it is, I hope you enjoy the last chapter to the K diaries. Listening to Shirley Horn's version of « The second time around » might greatly enhance your reading experience :)**

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><p>Chapter 11 : « The second time around »<p>

25th December 2012

This is no ordinary love. Maybe this is why we decided to put the lid back on. Close the door. Agree to loosen the ties there, wordlessly. Maybe that is what happened to us.

It is love that stains, that bleeds, that soars. Love that pushes us seated, barely buckled up on board a crazed sky high ride and dares us to keep our eyes open. Love that yanks on the already mended fabric of our hearts with no regard for our agglutinated fears. This is not foolish love, love that enchants us with stories, tales. This love looks at us square in the face, reaches and pulls our masks apart, and then tramples them on the floor right in front of us along with all of our reassuring artifice, leaving us naked and stunned.

I'm sitting here in our bedroom, where we are shooting our second take. Sitting here as snow crashes its softness outside the window, each flake a soothing balm on my raw senses. I'm sitting here, my skin streaked with the invisible tongue traced furrows you drew there. My skin spun, weaved into this ephemeral lace. Dizzy with the knowledge that «tears that taste of tears lose their taste for kissing »* . Sitting here with bruised, destroyed lips. Lips that kissed salty skin, collected warm creamy essence, swallowed whispers and cries, sought to quench the five month old sea wide thirst between us within the jet black to dark blue hues of one single sleepless night.

The warmth of our blue linen sheets you are still wrapped in is hard to leave behind when I wake up, and I quickly open the closet and slide into the plush cotton robe hanging there, to protect my naked skin from the bite of the cold air of the room, on this Christmas morning. A whiff of sandal wood greets me when I open the closet where I see that you've hung this new coat of yours, and I can't help running my fingers through the fabric, wondering what would have happened if I had reached out, touched your arm, on the many occasions you stood next to me wearing it. I'm here again. In your world. Your neatly folded perfect selection of clothes is sitting on the shelve next to the remaining robe. Not an item too much, I think, until I see the floral pattern of the silk scarf I got you last Spring, hung amongst the other garments. The sight tugs at my heart. It's still so early, there's a robin chirping and the morning light is still heavy with hues of blue. I have time. My handbag is sitting right there on the desk, right next to the stack of end of term reports i can't believe you brought. I tuck myself in the comfort of the green velvet armchair. I push the reports aside and, start writing as the memory of the rasp of your teeth on my skin, right before the bite you inflicted last night, stirs warmth in the pit of my belly. The mark here on my right hip, another piece of evidence : this is voracious, sprawling love. This is love that takes it all. Leaves me, drunk with you, lying on the floor, kissed to death. Puddled. This is love that hypnotizes you, sends you spinning , drowns you and then hangs you on my lips for rescue, drawing breath from our pulsing naked kiss, in full view of people whose opinion used to matter five distant minutes ago, before forever became self-evident.

None of the silky caresses of mature love for us. Shirley Horn's promise of love being «lovelier the second time around » sounds like a commercial meant to deceive, allure. A pathetic certainly doesn't feel like «a friendly home the second time you come ».

I'm stealing those minutes, the few minutes I have to myself. I'm writing as I would pinch myself out of delusion. I'm writing to make sure. To prove myself that you are indeed here, right behind me, sleeping in our borrowed bed. I'm writing to stop myself from going back to the source. To ensure that I let you sleep, recuperate. I'm writing to dissipate the loud call of your naked shoulder and offered neck. Remembering the the dark hues I saw when I woke up, just below your eyelashes, I hang on to harshly negotiated patience, through words traced by my fountain pen on the notebook pages, the gentle dance of the letters, traced by my fingers,

This is love that knocks us out with the slightest of touches. Love that borrows our life for small contractions of seconds and delivers it back to us, changed beyond recognition, its course grossly deviated by the earth shattering beating of butterfly wings. Almost nothing. Minute details. Just your lips on mine for a handful of seconds a few months ago. Just your hand crushed in mine in the shade of the ultrasound room, our eyes smashed on a screen larger than any one we've seen before, glued to the magic shown there. Our main protagonist. Schooling us already. Blowing on the fragile straw houses we call our lives. Just a flutter really. Distant heartbeats added to mine, pounding here, in my belly.

I am too overwhelmed by the spasms of the abject fear coursing in my veins like sticky lava to see it then. But this is all it takes, really. Almost nothing, for me to know. The slight quiver in your voice when you say « You might be fine », the cadence in your stride on the corridor of St Margaret's. The slip of your tongue when you forget to hide the counting «Twenty ….. how many weeks…. very unusual … » There is no politeness in your voice. No easiness in the cadence of your pace. No choice. I know then that this isn't a visit to a friend in need or to an ex lover. I recognize it. I know that you sit there, next to me, exactly the same way Richard sat, time and time again. You sit there unshielded. At the mercy of what might be said by a nurse, a doctor. Hoping not to be mutilated by words you cannot unhear. Just as unprotected as I am. Just as humbled. You sit there because you cannot be anywhere else, do anything else other than run when Beverly tells you. Yes, run probably, and get there as fast as you can, jumping lights, unseeing eyes on the road, mind exploding, a leaden lump in your stomach. You arrive at St Margaret's only minutes after I get there myself. It's all there in your voice, in the way you sit.

You've just moved in our bed, changed sides, and you are now facing me, the shift left your breasts uncovered. I like seeing you like this, bathed, flushed in us, in what we are.  
>I know that sleep is losing its grip. You are coming back to the surface. Little by little. I wonder what I will find in your eyes this morning. Will the thirst still be there? Will the pain be there too? Lingering?<p>

I wonder when you started letting yourself love her exactly. Did it start right away? When I told you Greg and I had made a start? Did you try not to, but found that you were already counting? Wondering about this child that was maybe there, growing?

Or rather, did it start only when I told you I was pregnant? When I stood there, only letting you know in the form of a request for maternity leave? As if you hadn't been dying to find out for weeks. Or was it not knowing how I was? Is it that what hurt the most? Day after day wondering, and not being told? Having to wait till morning to know? Dreading friday nights where there would be no way to find out for two long days? Was it being reduced to taking stolen peaks of me during recess from your office windows and speculating? Was it seeing me? Seeing the bump show more and more and not being allowed to stretch your arm and caress the warmth, the fullness there? Was it having to be polite? Removed?

Was it counting the days and knowing that by now, I would have had it in my hands, the first ultra sound picture? Was it aching for this ; for the fuzzy black and white shape of her, printed on a piece of paper? For proof? Was it not being able to tell? Someone, Anyone? That there is this child that feels like it's yours growing inside my belly.  
>Or maybe it was not being able to do anything. Plan. Buy things. Draw budgets. You probably did. Knowing you. There's probably something you couldn't resist buying. Doing. Something you bought early on. A teddy bear maybe, or a music box.<p>

I know something is probably really high on the list, though: when I kept thanking you for coming, for sitting next to me at St Margaret's. Each « thank you » obviously stung like a slap in your face. «Please…please don't thank me Kate. I just had to be there….» Your face ashen, elbows sagging, defeated. I was so blissfully unaware, swimming in a sea of gratitude, after the nurse said «You're fine, you're both fine ». I was floating, wanting to thank everyone I saw that day, the nurse, the patients in the waiting room, God. Wanting to tell them « My daughter is fine! My child is completely fine, gliding in my belly. » Absentmindedly driving the blade deeper yet by letting go of your hand and daring to apologize for holding it. I barely saw it. Barely paid attention. The nurse acknowledged your transparent love for this child more than I did.

But I knew that look. The same look as the one Richard held in his eyes for months. A very specific quality of sorrow. Someone who's being forbidden to love their child. Only this time, it wasn't the curse battering us mercilessly. This time there was a child to love. A child on its way to us. This time it was me. Preventing you. Stopping you. Keeping her to myself. «I wouldn't want to do this on my own.» Except I did. From the get go. Want her for myself. Just for me. I see it now. Hot liquid shame, flowing down my cheeks. A welcome release. I hope you don't wake up just yet. I don't want them to be the first thing you see on the first day of our second take.

I keep you for the end. I stock up first. On warmth, on smiles. On tight embraces and heartfelt thank yous, and light goodbyes; on the feel of the ray of sunshine on my hands flying on the keys as I play in the chapel. Winding my way amongst the happy crowd, I find you standing there next to the fireplace, affecting nonchalance, a glass of champagne in your hand, but your eyes tell me an other story. Our first words to each other have the cardboard taste of worn dialogues. It dawns on me that we've been watching each other from afar, for hours, like actors of a tragic pantomime stuck on the wrong set, and now we are dully delivering pre-scripted lines, distracted by the syrupy romantic finale being shot around us. Uttered aiming sideways, as if to get a better angle, your « yeah…how likely is that? » punctures a whole in my chest as surely as a sharp blade would have. You deliver it with eyes drenched in torrential thirst, it shoots out of your mouth like a stray line stolen from an otherwise vapid script. With eyes raking my pregnant belly, as if conjuring our daughter up as a witness of my cruel and unusual punishment towards you, you let each syllable in: « Have a merry Christmas too » spill out of your mouth in an explosion of purulent toxic hurt that wipes the smile right off my face. Your words bear the magic of a spell breaking kiss.

I turn my back on you and start taking steps towards the exit, fully aware of the gaping whole now lodged in my chest. I walk out knowing I am wounded. Bleeding drops of sorrow all the way home, enveloped in a thick numbing layer of silence all around, my car lights splitting the pitch darkness, licking the snow covered road side, my mind blasting in a deafening turmoil. By the time I reach the cottage, the sorrow has turned to full blown miraculous anger. How bloody exasperating can this get!

I push the door open, close it shut. There's no comfort in the smell of the vegetable curry I made yesterday, no joy in Monsoon's passionate brushes against the back of my legs. Shocked at the realization that I feel like a complete stranger in my own house, I lean on the entrance door, my coat still on. The entrance to my study is open and in darkness, I can still make out your unthrowable bouquet standing there on my desk, its mockery barring my way.

I stay there for some time. What sets me into motion is our daughter's sudden impatient kicks in my belly. I don't realize right away that I have let myself out of the cottage again and that I am now almost running to my car. I am back behind the wheel in seconds and it's not until I am almost at my destination, that I realize I am racing against myself. I want to get there before it's too late. Before I talk myself out of it. Before I decide to just cover the wound and move on. It's not a flash of lightning, or a suddenly clear vision that sends me bursting out of the cottage, heady elation shooting through my veins, having to coax my limbs into motion like a first year driver. It's a wave coming from the depth of myself. A ripple really at the beginning, a soaring awareness that finds it's way to me. By the time I step inside ballroom where the crowd has thinned out, I slide across the hardwood floor, engulfed in a wild surf that gently releases me to you before pulling out, hypnotized by my sudden appetite for boldness, realizing what is on my mind is nothing less than attempted robbery : stealing the stage. Letting all of our shame and fear, all the things that have caused us both to betray this love; convinced us both to sing along the malevolent song of small love, cautious love, love professed only behind close doors, shamed love; let it all be burnt to the ground, once and for all, here and now, dissolved under the diffused light of the chandelier of your mother's wedding reception. I'm here to give myself away, to dare us both out of the deceiving shadow, hand stretched open. To claim what we are to each other in center stage. To change the script.

When you don't put your hand in mine right away, after I ask « Do you want to dance? » my heart throbbing it s impossible rhythm in my ribcage, it feels like I am hanging on a cliff, contemplating a deadly fall, suspended.

But you do, you take my hand and we fall into this kiss. Our kiss.

You slide your hand in mine after our lips finally part, and lead the way, wordlessly, without looking back, your stride slower than intended. As if parting waters, you wade your way to our room amongst warm smiles, most people have long stopped watching us since this kiss, our kiss, bled into one song after the other. We are both silent, overwhelmed. You let the door close behind us and reach for the knot tying my dress in one single gesture, a loud pleading look in your eyes. I reach for your hands and tell you that we can wait. That we can take our time, that I'm not going anywhere, but I know looking at you that you can barely hear me. The dim light of the bedside lamp outlines the contours of your face as your lips are already lowering to grasp their first conquest, the patch of skin between my breasts. Your breath catches as you take a step back and simply take in the sight of me, your eyes caressing my belly, my chest and then, tears dancing in your eyes, you reach for the knot and pull the dress open. It feels like only seconds later, I'm caught, tightly fastened in your embrace, laid defenseless on the bed, braless, dress nowhere in sight, my breasts disappearing one after the other, in the warm cavity of your assaulting mouth. You seem intent on devouring fullness, a deafening thirst sends you feasting on my erect nipples, quenching an incandescent need that threatens to swallow me whole. I can see your fingers tremble as you place your hands on my belly and utter the first words since our very public kiss : « our daughter ». Your words ignite a massive warm swell inside of me. You leave a trail of of tears there, before pulling on the black lace of my knickers and sending them flying across the room. Hovering on top of me, a famished look in your eyes, you take a break from your slow fall into me, and rest you lips at the tip of my right hip, stalling, your fingers tasting the softness of my inner thighs. But as you dance your tongue on my skin, your ragged breath is the only warning that the teasing has turned on you, before I see the corner of your mouth lift, uncovering incisors that sink into my flesh, leeching a desperate cry out of my parched throat and drenching my body with a sharp shot of pure liquid lust. You tell me « I need you, Kate, I need to feel you, taste you. » There is no kindness in your gestures. They bear far too much urgency to afford it. You are everywhere after that, fingers between my thighs, caressing wet tender folds and then entering me roughly, your breath shouting in my ear, your tongue tracing burning patterns on my skin, drinking me, swallowing me. I'm swollen to the point of explosion, sent suspended in thin air, as I near the brink of release and then held in your eyes, and arms, as I cry my pleasure loud, loud, so loud in the silent night until I lay spent, in your arms, my naked body against your clad one.

At the turn of a caress across my cheek where you collect my grateful smile, you feed me pungent fingers. I take you in, swirling my tongue around your thrusting gift, your eyes gulping each one of my careful slurping licks. You paint my lips in saliva with the tip of your fingers and then draw your mouth close to mine resuming the sipping of the fresh welling lust we had licked dry minutes ago. As I ready my senses to take the long awaited trip across your skin, wishing I'd already freed you from your dress, you tell me « Kate...why does it feel like you and I just got married tonight? »

I just smile.

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><p><strong>* "tears that taste of tears lose their taste for kissing" taken from the jazz standard "You don't know what love is"<strong>

**Thank you so very much for reading and for your lovely reviews and private messages. Please keep them coming if you can, each one of them goes a very long way in my heart. This journey taken with the diaries has brought so much more than I ever thought possible but first and foremost the beautiful exchange with other tangofic writers, and I would like to particularly thank bspokebelle for her incredible and inspiring support and beta work as well as Shaloved for letting me borrow her bouquet. Thank you to all the amazing writers that keep me so inspired everyday.**

**For the music lovers, you'll find below a tracklist to the diaries.**

**Spring can really hang you up the most - Chet Baker**  
><strong>Blue in Green - Miles Davis<strong>  
><strong>Try a little tenderness - Otis Redding<strong>  
><strong>Eben Ne Andro Lontana - La Wally- Maria Callas<strong>  
><strong>Wild is the Wind - Shirley Horn<strong>  
><strong>Feeling Good - Nina Simone<strong>  
><strong>Fly me to the moon - Franck Sinatra<strong>  
><strong>The Kiss of Life - Sade<strong>  
><strong>Cry me a river - Dinah Washington<strong>  
><strong>Good Morning Heartache - Dinah Washington<strong>  
><strong>Round Midnight - Carmen McRae<strong>  
><strong>The Second Time around - Shirley Horn<strong>  
><strong>You don't know what love is - Cassandra Wilson<strong>


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